


From the Stars

by RoboticPopSauce



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alien AU because why not, Alien Bill, Alien sex later on, Blow Jobs happen, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Nothing too weird I promise, This is all pretty tame for me, This is pure fluff my dudes, Tol af Bill, more tags to be added when i think of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:17:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8590456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoboticPopSauce/pseuds/RoboticPopSauce
Summary: When Dipper’s boring day turns into a wild ride, he gets stuck with a strange alien that calls himself Bill. After some translating, Dipper realizes that he needs to help the alien get back home, and gets roped into fixing the spaceship with him, unaware that someone is looking for Bill.





	1. Crash Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy so here's this
> 
> Swear to god I'm not dropping anything to work on this, I'll be updating other stuff too, promise.
> 
> But yeeaah, y'all voted for this one a while ago on Tumblr and now it is HERE. You guys probably voted on this fluff fest to kill me, didn't you? >~> jkjk I'll survive.
> 
> This jumps right into the action and starts us off quickly so that our boys have more time to be fluffy with each other, but I promise the pacing of the rest of the story isn't this rushed :p
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!~

Dipper sat on his bed, his hands idly playing with the page of the book he had been trying to read. Key word being _trying._ The words were all plain and boring to him, and he was pretty sure he had already read that book once before but had picked it up out of boredom.

Rolling over, Dipper got out of bed and stretched, his shoulders popping a bit uncomfortably. He looked at his phone to check the time and saw that it was about noon. A long sigh escaped his lips and he slipped his shoes on, grabbing his backpack before making his way downstairs.

“Heading out?” Mabel asked before licking the spoon she was holding. Her long, dark brown hair was tucked into a very neat bun and had little sparkly things dotted throughout, and her makeup was done neatly with a bright red lipstick, making her look like a housewife in the fifties. “Are you sure you don’t wanna stay for these cupcakes?”

He shrugged and put his backpack on over his navy blue jacket. “Save me one?”

She rested a hand on her hip, the other fixing the bright pink and white polka dotted apron she was wearing. “Fine. But you know you don’t have to leave every time my friends come over.”

“Uhm, yes I do,” he laughed. “I can’t hear myself think overall the screaming. It’s like you gossip, but here there isn’t much to gossip about, so you just scream instead.”

Mabel stuck her tongue out at him and scrunched her round nose. “You’re just jealous that people come to visit me. You’re such a shut-in these days, bro-bro. You should socialize more. Like me!”

Dipper rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. “I do important stuff. Socializing isn’t my first priority.”

She narrowed her eyes and pointed the still batter-covered spoon at him. “Working with Ford is only kind of important. You should do start doing something that helps here and now. His research on like space and weird magic-y stuff doesn’t help people like say…”

“ _No,_ don’t you dare try to tell me to get a job with your boyfriend again, Mabel. I don’t care if he’s ‘helping the trees’ or whatever, I prefer to work with the space and ‘magic-y stuff’.” Dipper leaned against the green wallpapered wall, crossing his arms. It wasn’t the first time she told him to “get a real job” and it very likely wasn’t going to be the last. He liked working with Ford and Stan, researching whatever cool things they came across.

“C’mon, Tad makes good money working with the park. Plus the gals love a man in uniform,” she sang.

He scoffed at her and pushed off the wall. He could care less about those things. “I’ll be out in said woods, hiding from your friends. I’ll be back later.”

“If you get lost just call Tad!” Mabel yelled after him.

With another eye roll, Dipper stormed off, leaving the Shack to go to his usual spot in the woods to relax for a little while. Not like he _needed_ the time to relax. Things in his life had been pretty calm lately, so he didn’t have much to stress about like he usually would.

Stan and Ford were out exploring somewhere in Egypt for a few months, what friends he _did_ have were off at college or had just moved to get away from the small town, and his parents were back at home in California, living their normal lives. Everyone was fine and there was no drama, good or bad, to really even think about. Not even Mabel bothering him to work with Tad was something he could worry over.

Life had gotten pretty boring. But boring was okay. It just meant that nothing bad was happening. Nothing _good_ was either, but he didn’t really mind that.

After a long hike, he finally arrived at a dry spot to sit at. He hung his brown backpack on a branch and flipped it open to get his sketch book out, deciding that he might as well draw the scenery while he was there. It was better than trying to take any pictures of it, seeing as Dipper was terrible at photography. He had gotten pretty good at drawing after doodling on all of his papers at school, and he took it on as a hobby after he got out of high school.

All of the tree’s pine needles were a vibrant, emerald green, their bark a deep brown from the rain that had pelted them the night before. The air was cold, crisp, and clean, and every time he took in a deep breath it was as refreshing as a glass of water. He could smell the dirt and mud under his feet, and the heavy pine scent from the trees. It was all calming.

...Too calming. Dipper got bored after drawing out just one very detailed tree and decided to pack up early and head back to endure his sister’s lunch date. It would take a little while to get back to the shack, so he was hoping he would only catch the tail end of their hang out session. If anything, it would at least make his day less dull.

As he walked back, Dipper hummed and didn’t really pay much attention to anything around him. It was probably what caused him to take a wrong turn or two, but he didn’t mind going the roundabout way.

Somehow, though, he ended up in a part of the forest he wasn’t too familiar with after having walked for a good twenty minutes. He started to walk a little faster to try and get to somewhere that he did know, using the sun as his compass. It was rare for him to have trouble navigating through the woods, so it was a little worrying when he found himself in a place he _really_ didn’t recognize. He had wanted to waste time, not get lost.

Mabel’s joke about calling Tad made him sneer and trudge on. This would at least make him miss the lunch for sure, and he would get a decent workout from it. That was something he could definitely use since he rarely left his room most days.

A loud snap somewhere behind him made Dipper turn his head and stop walking. He was glad that it was still daytime out, or he’d be pretty freaked out right then by the sudden noise.

Right as he turned his head and stepped forward again, Dipper smacked into something, his forehead hitting a cold and metal object, knocking him onto his ass. He rubbed his head and looked up to see what he had run into, but nothing was there.

“There’s no way I imagined that,” he mumbled to himself as he stood up.

Still rubbing his head, Dipper reached out with his free hand and felt that there was, in fact, something in front of him, he just couldn’t see it.

He ran his hand along it and discovered that whatever it was, was pretty big and smooth. The thing seemed to perfectly fit in the clearing of trees he had wandered into, and he guessed that the side he was feeling was about twenty feet long. It also seemed like what he was touching had an under part, and his curiosity led him to duck underneath to examine its underside. A small handle caught his hand and he didn’t think twice before tugging it down.

The possibilities of what it could be ran through Dipper’s head and he felt a rush of excitement. It could be another secret lab Ford just hadn’t told him about. It could be a secret passageway for the magical creatures to use while traversing the forest, or it could be some cool secret base.

Regardless of what it was, though, Dipper had seen plenty of paranormal, “magic-y” things in the forest and got used to facing them head on, so he wasn’t all that afraid of what he might find when he opened whatever this thing was. Plus he figured it would at least be interesting.

The thing the handle was attached to opened with a hissing sound, dropping slowly by itself. He stepped out of the way so that it could fully touch the ground, and watched as it revealed a short, metal staircase.

“Holy shit.” Dipper cautiously stuck his head forward to look up into the thing, trying to see where the staircase lead. “Hello?” He took a step forward and waited to see if there was any response before going inside.

Nothing answered him and it looked like there was some light in it, so Dipper ducked down and decided to investigate it further. It wasn’t like he had much else to do, and maybe whatever it was had a way to help him find his way back to the shack.

Though he had never seen a real one before, it took Dipper less than two seconds to determine that he had just walked into a spaceship. Ford had a few entries in some of his journals about some that he had encountered, but none looked quite like this one did.

When he reached the top of the stairs, the door lifted back up behind him, closing him in the large space. The roof of the thing had to be at least ten feet high, and the inside reminded him of a really nice RV, but without all the utilities.

Everything that wasn’t a metallic silver was a toxic looking yellow. Weird lights and buttons were on every inch of the walls, dimly lighting the ship in a way that reminded Dipper of a laser tag field. Under his feet was a carpet that was ink black and plush, his shoes leaving imprints in it as he moved around. Thanks to the mud from the rain, he left a few footprints that he would have to apologize for later.

“What is this, the alien equivalent of a stoner’s Volkswagen?” Dipper joked to himself when he came to a doorway to his left that was closed off by black beads.

Each bead was shaped like either a pyramid or a thin oval, and Dipper decided to take his time and examine them for a moment. They were thickly layered and prevented him from seeing what was behind them, but he assumed the doorway led to the cockpit based on the light peeking through them.

Behind him was another set of beads that likely lead to the rest of the ship, and he wanted to see the cockpit before he checked it out, but the sound of fast, heavy footsteps from outside made him decide to run to them first and see if there was a place to hide until he could determine if the alien was friendly or not. Every entry Ford had about aliens claimed that they were mostly friendly, so he was sure that he wouldn’t have too much trouble with it. And if he did, well, he knew how to run.

Just as he went through the beads, the hatch opened again and something large climbed inside quickly, pulling the stairs up behind itself to make them close faster.

Dipper couldn’t see exactly what the alien looked like from where he was. All he could really see or hear from it was a string of what he assumed was cursing and frantic movements.

It rushed through the doorway to the cockpit and everything went eerily silent for a moment before he heard and felt the ship hum around him.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “Don’t take off, don’t take off, don’t take off,” he chanted as he built up the courage to go face the alien. He wasn’t about to let himself get launched into space because his boredom got the better of him.

The ship jolted upwards and Dipper stumbled back, catching himself on the wall. His hand accidentally pressed a button and a hissing sound from behind him scared him forward through the beads, falling face first into the soft carpet.

He laid there for a moment and groaned. His nose wasn’t broken or anything, but it stung horribly and made his eyes water.

Dipper was forcibly rolled onto his back when the ship sharply turned on its side, making him face the ceiling with wide eyes as a loud boom shook the ship. The roof of the thing was painted like the night sky, speckled with trails of golden glitter that sparkled in the lights. He was seriously starting to think that he was either having a really weird dream or that he had run into an alien that had just left the galactic Woodstock.

Another loud sound made him snap out of his daze and he forced himself to get on his feet, stumbling over to the cockpit. He had to know why their flight was so rough, and he was hoping the alien would be the nice kind of hippie and would put him back down before continuing its apparently dangerous trip.

When he moved the beads out of his way, he was met with a pure black room. It was hard to discern what was what because it was all the same black, and the only things that he could clearly make out were the smoke obstructing his view through the front window and the pale, blond hair sticking up from the pilot’s chair in front of him.

“What’s going on up here!?” Dipper demanded. He struggled to make his way over to the alien but managed to get next to it.

The alien was yellow and black just like the inside of its ship, having mostly human features until it came to its arms and legs. It nearly jumped out of its seat and made a surprised sound, its hands moving away from the control panel for a moment as it turned to look at Dipper.

Large, yellow, glowing eyes met his, the black slitted pupils growing wide when it opened its mouth. “Not scream when fly! Startle!” It barked out at him.

Its voice was higher pitched than Dipper thought it would be and the broken English made him tilt his head to the side.

“What?”

An explosion rocked the ship and loud beeping made the alien turn its attention back to the controls, frantically trying to keep the ship from nose-diving down into the trees.

“Sit!” A very yellow, clawed hand smacked into Dipper’s chest and he was shoved into a chair that had blended into the rest of the room.

It was like sitting on an office chair that was filled with gel and covered with a fuzzy leather, and a harness that was slightly too big for him automatically buckled around his torso, holding him in place while the ship rocked back and forth.

“We need to land!” He yelled over the beeping.

The alien glared at him and made a gesture that Dipper was pretty sure was its way of flipping him off.

“There’s a shack in these woods, land by that! But first, let’s maybe lose whatever is shooting at us!” His hands gripped the armrests on the chair and his head began to spin. He was getting motion sick really fast and he wanted to be done with the unintentional field trip already.

“No fuck!” The alien’s hand pushed a sequence of buttons on the panel in front of it, each turning red after they were pressed. “Lose then land! If crash fault is yours!”

Well, it knew what swearing was for sure, that didn’t help make it seem very friendly. Though, it had pushed Dipper into the chair so that he wasn’t getting hurt and flying around the cabin. He was just hoping that they got the chance to safely land so that he could have the chance to further determine if it was deadly or not.

Dipper squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I can barely understand you, just do what you need to do then land by the shack!”

“Your words, not mine. If bad then still on you!”

He kept his eyes closed and put more trust in the alien than he probably should have to get him home. Hopefully it knew what it was doing, and hopefully, he would be able to better actually help the situation once he was at home where he could access Ford’s weapons that were stashed in the basement.

The alien started to swear in a different language, cursing over and over while the ship thrashed about.

There was no way for Dipper to know how long it took for things to calm down, but he assumed it took nearly an hour of his stomach being tossed around before the ship finally stopped rocking.

“Shack is same as house? Building?” It had to speak over the sound of beeping that still hadn’t stopped, its voice loud and angry.

Dipper nodded quickly and noticed how tightly he was gripping the chair. His knuckles were probably paper-white and his face was likely red and scrunched up. He was really starting to wish that when he opened his eyes all of this would go away, and that he would be in his bed, safe from the pissed off alien. None of Ford’s written experiences with aliens ever went this poorly.

It sucked in a deep breath and Dipper felt the ship start to fall.

The armrests he was clinging to felt like the gel inside might actually pop out if he kept digging his nails into them, so he tried his best to relax and maybe open his eyes to see how well things were going.

Opening them, though, was a mistake. The fog had cleared and he could see through the front window again, but it was just in time to see the front of the ship nose dive into the trees, the branches snapping and crunching under the weight of it.

When they hit the ground, Dipper let out a yelp and tensed again, glad that the harness was holding him in place so that he didn’t smack into the window.

Eventually, everything went silent and still, prompting Dipper to try and get out of the seat. The harness had bent a little on the clasp and he had to really tug at it to get it to open.

His first thought when he stood was that he was glad that the ship had landed upright, and his second was that he needed to puke.

Rushing out of the ship the way he had come in, Dipper didn’t even bother to care that the alien was following him. It could yell at him after he made sure not to yak on its carpet.

The hatch opened right as he approached it, and Dipper jumped down the stairs onto the mud below him, skipping over the stairs entirely.

Pine needles and sharp, broken branches and trunks littered the familiar area, and mud was splashed up onto the now visible ship, which was a charcoal color. He would have to ask about the repeating color scheme.

Dipper looked around and could see the shack not even a mile away from them and he tried to let out a sigh of relief, but instead he emptied his stomach onto the ground.

“Why are you on my ship!” The alien shouted from behind him. “Could have you taken with me!”

Dipper put his hand up at the alien and stood up straight, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Listen, it was an accident. I had no intentions of coming with you.” He fully looked at the alien and felt the color drain from his face.

It towered over him at nearly eight feet tall, and it was snarling at him, showing off its shark-like teeth. He could tell that it was tense and almost looked like it was ready to pounce on him, making him begin to think that he had run into one of the few unfriendly aliens.

“Accident or not, you made my ship broken! Can’t leave with like this! How do expect fly?” Its skin began to turn red and Dipper gulped. “Help fix! Your fault!” It raised its hand and looked like it was going to strike Dipper, but instead it threw it down as if it were throwing a tantrum.

He flinched at the action and raised his hands to show that he meant no harm. “L-look, I’ll totally help you fix this, but we need to just calm down right now. I’m cool about you because I know you exist, but I can’t imagine other people being very calm about finding this. We have to hide you and your ship.” He was going to need to call Ford for some help later, but until then he knew he couldn’t have all of this mess out in the open.

“You do that,” it scoffed. “Your fault. You fix.” Its skin started to turn yellow again and crossed its arms over the gray hoodie-like shirt it was wearing. Its arms were fairly human looking besides its pointy elbows, but its legs were much more reptilian-like.

“Okay,” Dipper said slowly. “But we _are_ going to need to work together a little bit. My name’s Dipper.” He cautiously stepped forward and extended his right hand, hoping that a handshake wasn’t somehow offensive to it.

“Name’s-” The alien proceeded to let out a sound that reminded Dipper of a cat chittering, but it somehow sounded angry.

“Uh, I don’t think I can pronounce that. Do you have something I can call you that a human can actually say? I-I don’t mean to be rude, I just-”

It cut him off with an exasperated sigh, rolling its eyes and slumping its shoulders. “Humans have weak mouths.”

Dipper let his hand fall and he put it into his jacket pocket, trying his best not to laugh at the alien’s phrasing. A giggle slipped out despite his effort. “Weak mouths?”

“Weak mouths!” A tail that Dipper hadn’t noticed flicked around wildly behind it and it stomped its clawed foot. “Simple name, one not even _you_ with a weak mouth can fuck up. Name’s Bill.”

Dipper gave a small smile and gestured all around them. “The forest will be the easiest place to hide the ship, but we have to move it away from where we broke a bunch of trees.” The excitement from before washed over him and he nodded to the ship. “Is there a way we can move it just a few yards?”

Bill shrugged and turned to look at the ship, its tense stance from before relaxing. “Need to look. Tell me place to move it and I will move it if able.”

Glad that he had calmed Bill down, Dipper started to assess where the best place to move it to would be. If they stored it just behind the shack, it would give him better access to Ford’s tools. Not like he actually knew _how_ to help the alien fix its ship, but maybe with Ford’s stuff it could do it on its own.

“Okay, tell me when you know if we can move it or not, then we’ll go from there.”

It glared down at him, holding his stare as if it were thinking about what it wanted to say. “I won’t do bad if you don’t do bad.”

Was Bill offering a truce of some sort? Dipper tilted his head and raised a brow. “You mean, like, you’ll be nice if I’m nice? No attacking each other?”

“No attacking each other,” it parroted. “Still am mad, but will not hurt you if you not try to hurt me. Yes?” It held out its hand over his head and kept his gaze, its pupils narrowing.

“Uh, yes. I won’t try to hurt you. You also have to listen to me when it comes to other humans. Like I said, they’ll probably freak out.” He broke their eye contact and looked up at Bill’s hand. Each finger had a ring of black around it above the first knuckle, matching its raven colored claws.

Bill roughly patted him on the head then turned to walk away, its tail still flicking around. “I will comply. Give time to look at ship first.”

Dipper leaned against a tree and nodded. “Just let me know when you’re finished.”

As soon as the alien was back in the ship, Dipper let out a worried laugh. He knew he would likely meet an alien one day because of his work with Ford, but he never thought he would get stuck with one. Not that it was a bad thing, though. Mabel _had_ told him to socialize more, so what if it was with an alien? Maybe he could make friends with it.

That is if it wasn’t too mad at him. He admitted that he probably shouldn't have scared Bill while he was flying, but what other choice did he have? He had to let it know that he was there before it tried to go home or something.

Speaking of home, he was sure that Mabel and the others had probably heard the crash, and he was going to have a lot of explaining to do when they headed back. He wasn’t sure how well she would take having the alien stay with them, but Dipper was going to push for it because he definitely didn’t want to get on Bill’s bad side. With teeth and claws like that, he knew he would have to be as friendly as possible to it, or he would end up finding out just how sharp they are.


	2. New Roommate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops the holiday made me wanna die so I didn't write anything during it
> 
> But here's this now, so I hope you enjoy it! :D
> 
> Weirdly edited because I edit things different now and gave up on this one about halfway through because I am tired, sorry :p

The door to the shack creaked as Dipper slowly pried it open. He cringed when he realized that he was going to be caught despite his effort to be quiet. He and the alien had finished moving the ship, Dipper directing Bill while it forced the ship up enough to move just above the trees to a spot behind the shack, and they were currently trying to get Bill up into Dipper’s room.

“Dipper?” Mabel’s head peeked out of the kitchen, her apron from before no longer tied around her waist.

Dipper smiled sheepishly and kept the door mostly closed over himself. “Your friends aren’t still here, are they?”

She narrowed her eyes at him and stepped further out of the kitchen, her hands on her hips. “They are. Paz was telling us a story about her trip to Paris last month and it took a while. You know you can be at least a little nice and come say hi. They aren’t _that_ bad.”

Bill impatiently tapped on Dipper’s back, and when Dipper turned to look at it, it made a gesture to go inside. “Am not supposed to be hiding? We are outside.”

“I know, I know, just hang on a sec,” Dipper mumbled to him.

“Who are you talking to?” Mabel had walked closer to the door and was trying to peek outside. “Dipper, are you trying to sneak a girl into the house without me seeing her?” She perked up and grabbed the door, yanking it back before Dipper could stop her.

When her eyes landed on Bill, they grew wide and she gasped. She took a step back and tilted her head to the side, her brows furrowing as she tried to process what she was looking at.

“Listen, I can-”

“Dipper Pines, you were outside for all of two hours and you managed to find and bring home a… dinosaur? What is that?” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Bill, tapping her foot impatiently for an answer.

“Alien. It’s an alien. I maybe sort of kind of caused it to crash its ship and now it’s staying here while I help it fix it,” he said quickly. He smiled and hoped that she would just let him pass for now and explain later since he was sure that if her friend saw Bill it would just cause more problems than anything.

Mabel sternly pointed to the stairs and let out a puff of air. “It can stay if it’ll wear a new sweater. The one it’s wearing right now is too plain.”

Dipper looked at Bill expectantly, hoping that it understood what Mabel’s demand was. He wasn’t sure how much English it actually knew, and would hate to have to explain to it that his sister wanted to dress him up.

It narrowed its eyes back at her. “Will wear if not scratch.”

The brief silence that fell was broken by Candy calling Mabel back into the kitchen, sending a wave of panic over Dipper.

“Okay, cool, it can stay, now _please_ let me go hide it. I don’t feel like explaining aliens to your friends. I’ll tell you the whole story after they go home.” Dipper gave her his best pleading look, mentally apologizing for the scolding he knew he was probably going to get later for bringing a random alien home.

She sighed and nodded towards the stairs. “Okay, fine. Go hide up in your room with the alien.” She pointed at Bill and her nose scrunched up in fake anger. “Don’t go eating my brother or anything like that! Mabel knows ka-ra-tay!”

When she started randomly chopping at the air while making fake fighting noises, Dipper rolled his eyes and grabbed Bill by the sleeve of his hoodie-like shirt and pulled him forward.

Being that he was so tall, Bill’s head smacked into the top of the door frame and it swore in some other language.

“Small!” It growled out.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Dipper waited until the alien ducked its head inside, then continued to pull it towards the stairs.

Bill’s footsteps were heavy and loud, alerting the women in the kitchen of someone new entering the house, which probably made them wonder if Dipper really had been trying to sneak a girl into the house. That would have been gossip enough for them to investigate, and it made Dipper worry even more about possibly having to explain Bill to them.

Sure, they had all seen some weird stuff while living in Gravity Falls, but he doubted they would take seeing an actual, predatory-looking alien in person very well.

“Mabel, who is here?” Candy could be heard getting closer to the entryway, prompting Dipper to pull Bill along faster.

“No one! Dipper is just… Stomping! He’s mad at me right now! Let’s go talk about it in the kitchen!” She began gesturing for her friend to go back into the kitchen, shooing her away from the scene of Dipper pulling the too-tall alien up the stairs that were creaking under its weight.

It made Dipper briefly wonder just how much the alien weighed, despite its lithe build. Nothing under two-hundred pounds could make those kind of heavy thuds just from walking.

A large sigh of relief left Dipper’s lips when he finally got his bedroom door shut, Bill looking around the attic room in wonder, seemingly unphased by almost getting seen.

Bill’s eyes scanned the attic room, almost as if it were looking for something specific. It made Dipper feel uneasy, to say the least. Something about the way the alien was built screamed danger, though based off of what he had seen already, he was pretty sure that Bill wasn’t actually going to use any of those sharp claws on him.

Dipper wasn’t sure if Bill’s eyes actually glowed or if they just _looked_ like they did because of their bright color, but when they landed on him and looked him up and down, he was suddenly hit with how _weird_ Bill was.

From the waist down Bill looked like a reptilian creature, its legs clearly built for some real speed and strength. But from the hips up it looked nearly human, save for the very yellow skin and black stripes that looked tattooed onto its forearms, fingers, and a single one around his neck. Its ears were pointed all along the helix, which made Dipper also wonder about what evolutionary purpose those things might serve.

“This?” Bill picked up one of the red bouncy balls that Dipper left on his desk to play with when he was bored, holding it up between its index finger and thumb. “What?”

He grabbed it from the alien and threw it on the floor to demonstrate it, easily catching it again when it bounced back up. “You play with it.” He handed it back to Bill, watching its eyes grow wide.

“Not eat? If not eat then what? Just play?” It brought it closer to its face and tapped the side of it, its black claw nearly piercing the rubber. “Why?”

Dipper shrugged and made his way over to his bed, plopping down to take his shoes off after setting his backpack down near the foot of it. “I don’t know, just for fun. Do your species not make things just for fun?”

Bill lifted its hand and held it above its head for a moment, then dropped the ball and followed it intently, almost like a playful cat as the ball jumped around on the floor a few times. “Bigger ones do.”

“Bigger? What do you mean? Like older, or are there actually other aliens like you that are bigger?” He laughed awkwardly and scooted back until his back was against the wall and his legs were comfortably stretched out in front of him on the bed. Another alien like Bill but bigger sounded downright terrifying.

It hummed and lost interest in the ball when it rolled under his dresser, looking over at Dipper instead. Its tail lazily waved back and forth behind it, the black fin-like bits on the end swaying lightly. There were more stripes and rings on the tail, further confusing Dipper about why Bill might be built the way it was. It seemed to have a little bit of everything mashed into it.

“Higher. Above?” It shrugged. “Not enough of your words to tell you. English haven’t needed in a long time.” Bill moved closer to Dipper and poked the bed. Seeming satisfied with the texture, it copied Dipper’s action and sat next to him, the bed groaning at the weight. “How long hide? You crashing ship made me hungry.”

Dipper inched away from Bill and felt his shoulders grow tense. “I-I don’t know, maybe like, half an hour? What do you eat?”

“Carnivore, you see?” Bill said in a tone that almost seemed sarcastic. It pushed its top lip up and licked the row of sharp teeth.

“Your tongue is forked,” Dipper said under his breath. “So you are more like a reptile.”

“No, hot-blooded, ‘mammal’ like you,” it scoffed. “Just better hunter.” The alien stuck its tongue out at him and crossed its arms.

“Well I don’t really need to hunt, so I’m not built for it. But hunting means you eat other animals, right? Like, raw meat? I’m pretty sure we have some uncooked stuff in the freezer.” He would need to go to the store soon and pick up whatever Bill would need there. He hadn’t thought about it when he invited Bill to stay with them, but he was likely going to have to change a lot around the house for Bill to live comfortably.

“Sounds fine.” It lulled its head to the side and met Dipper’s stare. “Ship can take your week time to fix. Possibly more. Am okay to let not be mad if you give me space like this to stay.” Bill gestured to Dipper’s room, its eyes not leaving his.

“Uh, sure. You can have a room to yourself. We have a spare that’s… Well, it’s kind of being used, but he’s in Egypt right now, so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind…” Dipper wanted to look away from the bright eyes, but Bill’s stare was so intense that he found himself almost dazed by it. The slitted pupils felt like they were boring into his skull, but somehow it wasn’t all that unpleasant.

Bill blinked and looked away from Dipper for a second before looking right back at him. “Other humans here?”

Dipper gave a short, slow nod. “My two grunkles. Ford and Stan. Stan has a room downstairs and Ford usually stays in the basement.”

“They surprise by me?”

“No,” he laughed. “They’re actually the reason that _I’m_ not surprised by you. Mabel -the girl you saw downstairs- and I both know about aliens and stuff because of them.”

The alien nodded and turned its head to look out at the room again. Something about its gaze softened and it went lax against the wall. “If room is taken by stranger, I would like better if stay with in room with you. Don’t trust. Not you either, but better than new face.”

“Y-you want to stay in here? With _me?_ ” Dipper looked to the wall opposite of where his bed was. The room _was_ big enough to drag Mabel’s old twin-sized bed back into it, but he wasn’t sure how comfortable he would be with sharing his space with the alien. “I don’t know…”

Bill held out its hand and splayed its fingers, wiggling them a little as it spoke. “Not harm while rest. Claws for hunting, I don’t eat humans.”

A sudden, awkward laughed forced its way from Dipper’s mouth. “Well, that’s comforting, I guess. I...guess it’s alright if you stay in here. It’ll probably make it easier to hide you anyway.” He bit his bottom lip and huffed through his nose. “We have a lot of work to do when Mabel’s friends leave.”

 

~~

 

For what felt like ages, Mabel stood in front of Bill in the front room, her eyes flickering over him as if she were trying to make sense of him. She was rubbing her chin and tapping her foot, humming every so often.

“Is needed? Feeling this silence is weird.” Bill was looking to Dipper for some kind of help to get her to stop staring, but Dipper knew that she was likely a bit miffed with him, so he just kept his mouth shut and shrugged at Bill.

Mabel’s friends had gone home and she immediately dragged Dipper and the alien downstairs to interrogate them. Dipper had already told her the gist of what happened, and she just went quiet afterward. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“I got it!” Her face perked up and she didn’t seem to notice both Dipper and Bill jumping at the sudden sound of her voice. “It looks like a radioactive velociraptor fucked a Norwegian supermodel and had a giant baby!” She stepped closer to Bill and poked its nose with her index finger. “ _That’s_ what you look like!”

“I apologize?” Bill cocked its head and looked to Dipper again, that time getting some help away from the brunette.

“Ah, Mabel, I don’t think it likes-”

“Don’t be sorry, I didn’t mean that as a bad thing!” She plopped down next to it on the couch and patted Bill on the shoulder. “I just had to figure that out for my own sake. I like to make comparisons.”

The alien gave an unsure nod and inched closer to Dipper. “This is sister? Mabel?”

Mabel perked up and sat up proudly. “That’s me! Alpha twin Mabel, at your service! Since my bro-bro caused you to crash your ship, we’ll be more than happy to let you stay at the Mystery Shack while he fixes it!” Her eyes drifted to Dipper and she gave him a playful glare, her anger from the situation clearly gone. “And Dipper will be there for anything you might need. Where _is_ Bill going to be sleeping?”

“It wanted to sleep in my room with me. I was going to drag your old bed back up there and just set up the room how it used to be.” He shifted away from Bill, only for the alien to scoot up next to him again.

“Sounds good to me! You should get on that while I make us dinner.” She looked at Bill and her smile grew wider. “Do you wanna help me cook? What do you eat? How many ounces of edible glitter can you consume? Y’know, hypothetically.”

Dipper stood up and from the couch, not missing Bill’s weary glance. “She’s harmless,” he assured it. “It eats raw meat, Mabel. Don’t go trying to feed it something that could kill it. It could be allergic to glitter for all we know.”

She waved a hand at him. “Psht, fine. I’ll only feed it raw steak or whatever it is that we’ve got.” She stood and grabbed Bill’s hand, pulling it off the couch with her. “C’mon, let’s get cooking! Er, well, in your case, let’s get thawing!”

The two left, Bill’s large form stumbling to keep up in the small house with Mabel. It made a sound a distress, only to be shushed by Mabel.

Unable to do much about the situation, Dipper just shook his head and began his trek to the basement, where he would have to drag the mattress and frame pieces up a bunch of stairs. He wished Mabel would have let the alien help him since it seemed strong enough to do it without issue, but he figured it was best that he not make the alien do much anyway.

He _had_ stranded it here, and the least he could do was accommodate it and make it feel comfortable, as hard as that might end up being.

All of the tools he needed were by the bed, thankfully, tucked away in one of the small storage rooms near Ford’s lab. Both of their old beds would likely be there if Dipper hadn’t accidentally burned his one summer while trying to mess with some of the chemicals he had found Ford studying.

The mattress wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be, and, though it seemed to take forever, he got it and all of the pieces up to his room in about an hour.

Putting it together, however, was a much longer process. It gave him time to think, though, mostly about what types of things Bill would need. It was warm blooded, so it was going to need blankets, and Dipper might need to turn the heater on his room on. It would probably need to shower and clean itself soon, so he would have to make a list of things to ask it about toiletries.

By the time Dipper was done, he was panting and sweaty, but he had a good mental image of the things he would need to do in the morning. The day had gone by fast, and he was ready to check up on Bill and Mabel, then eat before bed.

“That took forever,” Mabel said in a funny voice. “Do you not want to hang out with us?” She was sitting at the table, holding one of Bill’s hands while it used the other to chew on a chunk of raw meat. A soft baby blue nail polish was sitting on the table, about to be used to decorate the alien, who seemed oddly indifferent to it. It was more focused on eating than what Mabel was doing.

“Carrying an entire bed up all those stairs is not easy, Mabel.” He went over to the stove where a pot of mac and cheese was waiting for him, then made himself a large plate before sitting down at the table next to Bill.

Mabel had already eaten and was content with just humming to herself while she painted Bill’s claws, and Bill seemed to be deep in thought while he ate. It was likely either trying to plan out its unexpected vacation on Earth or trying to figure out Mabel and how to get out of whatever she might have planned next. Dipper voted that it was a little bit of both.

Once the food was gone and the alien’s nails were painted, Mabel announced that she was going to go hang out in her room for the night.

“I have a sweater to make, so don’t bug me until like, noon tomorrow.” She tucked her chair under the table and put the closed bottle of nail polish into her bra, letting out a yawn. “Maybe one, I don’t know. Just let this woman sleep.” With a wave, Mabel turned on her heels and made her way out of the room, leaving Dipper and Bill sitting at the table.

Bill was staring at his claws with wide eyes, not blinking for a while, which weirded Dipper out a little. “This is good. The color.”

“The blue? Yeah, it’s a nice color.” He put his plate in the sink and made an awkward gesture to the stairs. “I guess, we should head to bed for now. We can start working on fixing your ship in the morning. And I can go to the store and pick up more stuff for you-”

“Blue,” Bill interrupted. “I like it. Like you.” It pointed at him and a wide smile spread on its lips.

Dipper felt a blush rush to his cheeks and he nearly choked on air. “L-like me?”

It nodded. “Your hat. It is blue also.”

His shoulders relaxed and Dipper laughed at himself as he reached up to touch his hat. The language barrier was going to take some getting used to. “Right, yeah, it is blue. I wear a lot of blue, actually, so it’s cool that you like it, I guess.”

Bill stood and tried to stretch its arms out, but couldn’t fully extend them in the small space. “I would like to lay down.”

“Right, yeah, let’s go get you set up for bed.”

Thanks to the surplus of blankets and pillows Mabel had hoarded over the years, Dipper was able to decorate the old bed with plenty of pillows and a few blankets for Bill, should it need any of them. He had no idea what it usually slept like, so he figured he would just give it a bunch of things then it could rearrange them on its own.

“Let me know if you get too hot or too cold. I’ve got even more blankets around if you need them.”

The alien looked between both beds for a moment, its eyes _definitely_ glowing in the low light of the room. “You sleep there, I sleep here?” It asked as it pointed at each bed.

“Yeah. And like I said, let me know if you need anything else.” Grabbing his pajamas, Dipper left the room to go change while the alien made itself comfortable. He hoped that it didn’t sleep naked or anything like that, or if it did, he hoped that it at least stayed under the blanket the whole time. He had no idea what its genitals looked like, and he wasn’t curious enough to get into that level of awkwardness with it.

Once he changed, Dipper came back into the room and found that the light was already off and that the alien was already tucked into bed, nearly completely under the covers.

Dipper shrugged it off as the alien likely just being tired from their long, exciting day. He knew that _he_ was, so he didn’t blame Bill for calling it a night so abruptly.

He snuggled into bed and took a deep breath once he was comfortable. First night seemed to go smoothly enough. In the morning he would make a real plan to fix the ship and maybe try to contact Ford and Stan. If anyone knew how to help fix an alien’s spaceship, it would be them, and Dipper was starting to worry that he wasn’t going to be up to the task himself.

Bill seemed relaxed enough about it, though. That could be from it being too tired to be upset, but Dipper was just going to hope and pretend that the alien wasn’t actually that mad or upset with him, for the sake of getting along with it long enough to help get it back home. And if it _was_ just too tired to be upset with him, well, then, he was going to have a rough morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a chapter to ease Bill into the house a bit. But rest assured, once he's comfortable, there is no stopping the amount of SASS this gaylien has.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!~


	3. Space Invader

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay more of the gaylien :D 
> 
> Lightly edited as always because editing is hard and I have like 0 time these days RIP
> 
> Enjoy!~

Dipper’s room was unbearably _hot._ He was a sweaty person, he knew that, but he felt like he was sweating more than normal. The sun was barely up and yet he was drenched, which was weird for that time of year. It was Spring, after all, it shouldn’t be so hot that he felt like he needed to break out his fan already.

If he opened the window, though, surely his problem would be solved and he could go back to sleep for a few more hours. Mabel would probably appreciate it if he weren’t grumpy, so he decided that that was going to be his plan. Open the window, sleep in late.

For some reason, though, he felt too heavy to get out of bed, almost like there was an actual weight on him. He knew he was tired, but he shouldn’t be so tired that he couldn’t actually move.

To help himself wake up a little, Dipper lifted his hand to rub his face. Luckily he didn’t rub his eyes, because the second he put his hand to his face, a thick, warm substance coated his cheek. What his hand was covered in he didn’t know, but it prompted him to finally open his eyes and actually look at his surroundings.

Dipper’s eyes grew wide when he saw a crop of near-white hair on his chest and clawed hands resting on his shoulders. The day before came rushing back into his mind and he did his best to hold in a yelp, instead just letting out a puff of air. The alien had crawled into bed with him, laid _on him,_ and had buried them both under a pile of blankets. A strange, clear, odorless ooze of some sort was coming off of Bill’s skin, almost like it was sweating the stuff.

Rather than freaking out because he had no idea how Bill would react, Dipper slowly started to toss the blankets off of them. As they each fell to the floor, the thought of playing with the alien’s hair came to Dipper’s mind. Was it soft? Did it feel like human hair? What if Bill got offended and it was very rude to play with someone’s hair on its planet?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Dipper’s hand was on top of the alien’s head. His hand and Bill’s skin were coated in the ooze, but it made the contact feel very warm and almost pleasant. Dipper ran his hand through Bill’s short hair, not missing how the alien started to purr almost like a cat when he did it a second time.

He retracted his hand and cracked a smile. Well, _that_ wasn’t something he was expecting from something as scary looking as Bill. Bill’s species might be a little friendlier than he thought. Or, at least, a little more social. The sweating mucus-like goop was something he couldn’t figure out, though. Why on any planet would a creature need to secrete a thick liquid right from their skin? Was it cold and needed it to help insulate?

Bill’s purring stopped and it shifted, its hand moving from Dipper’s shoulder to grab around for a blanket. It grunted when it only found that there was one over them and propped itself up, meeting Dipper’s stare.

“Cold,” it whined.

“You are literally sweating all over the place, how are you cold? My bedding and pajamas are covered!” He gestured to his gray T-shirt and to the blanket that was stuck to Bill. “I’m like dying it’s so hot.”

It sat up suddenly and moved off of Dipper. “Heat makes you _die?_ Weak.”

“No,” Dipper groaned. “I’m exaggerating. I’m not _actually_ dying, I just mean it sucks.” He got out of bed, moving a bit awkwardly to try and keep the ooze from getting on everything.

Bill laid in Dipper’s spot and wiggled a little bit before pointing at the blankets on the floor, some of them not yet covered in the ooze. “I sleep more than you. Get started and I can join in fixing later.”

Dipper gave Bill an unimpressed look, trying not to focus on the slowly cooling alien goo on his arms and clothes. “You’re expecting me to tuck you in and let you sleep while I do all the work?”

It scrunched its nose at him then rolled over, its tail flicking upwards under the blanket still partially over it. “ _You_ broke ship, not me,” it scoffed. “So sleep now, help later. Also need more blankets if you are to be going.”

There _were_ a few things Dipper needed to do before he even started to work on the ship. First, he had to shower, then head to the grocery store, then he would try and get ahold of Ford and Stan, and then he could start working on how he might go about fixing Bill’s ship. It would probably be best for Bill to stay hidden up in his room while he did all that.

“ _Fine,_ ” he sighed. Reluctantly, Dipper started to pile the blankets back onto Bill, realizing that the alien had gotten more from the closet at some point in the night. “I thought you said you were warm blooded? How come you’re acting so cold?”

Bill hummed contently and the crackling start of a purr started to sound as Dipper put the last blanket on it. “Used to hot. Prefer as much warmth as can get while sleeping. Just…” It shifted a little and the purring stopped. “Fine now. Will wake up later.”

Rather than questioning its odd behavior, Dipper shrugged it off and turned to get new clothes.

“Alright. Stay in here until I come get you so that no one sees you. I have to make sure the coast is clear before you go walking around the shack, okay?”

“Okay,” it murmured from its pile of blankets.

Because of how tall it was the alien had to curl in on itself a bit, causing the already large stack of blankets to seem even bigger with the large ball underneath it.

“You sure you’re okay under there? Like, you can’t get _too_ hot?” Dipper peeled off his slimy shirt, cringing when he had to lift it over his head. Some of the ooze got in his hair and a wave of annoyance went through him. Something was going to have to change with the sleeping arrangement and fast.

“Fine. Not weak like you. _I_ can handle temperature.”

Dipper scoffed and tossed his shirt onto the pile of dirty clothes in the corner. “Yeah, unless it gets cold.”

The pile of blankets wiggled until Bill was turned around and facing Dipper, a scowl on his face. “That’s only while sleeping.”

“Weak,” Dipper mocked. “Anyway, I’ll be out for a while, so enjoy your down time while you can, Sleeping Beauty.” With a new outfit in hand, Dipper left the alien to hopefully actually fall back asleep. He didn’t want to come home from the store to find anything broken because the alien got bored or something, so he hoped that it would actually go back to bed.

In the bathroom, Dipper set his new clothes on the counter and looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was sticking up in a few places where the slime had gotten in it, and he let out a puff of air as he tried to smooth it down.

Frustrated, Dipper decided to get some orange juice before showering, nearly slipping on the stairs. He hadn’t even realized how covered his pajama pants were until then and groaned when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“I hope this stuff washes out,” he grumbled.

Mabel was seated at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, her smile wide enough to make Dipper wonder if her cheeks were hurting. Her hair was let down and she was still in her fluffy kitty onesie, the pink and white furr currently being playfully pet by one Tad Strange, who was seated next to her in his deep green, very formal looking park ranger outfit.

“Whoa, Dippin’ Sauce, what happened to you? What _is_ that gunk?” She gave him a strange look until it clicked in her mind, then her eyes went wide and she gave a sheepish smile because now Dipper would have to come up with an excuse.

“It seems to have the same consistency as mucus, however, that is a _lot_ of mucus for anyone or anything.” Tad’s hand idly moved to Mabel’s hair and he began to run his finger through it, probably ready to braid the long strands for Mabel.

Dipper struggled for a moment to think of something that didn’t sound _too_ crazy. Really it could be anything and Tad would believe it. The dude was so trusting and only really got suspicious when it came to people misbehaving while he was at work.

“It, er, w-well, I have…an experiment upstairs that, like, exploded on me. It’s not mucus, just...slime.” He shuffled over to the fridge and hastily got out the orange juice. He started to notice that the ooze was drying on his arms and that it didn’t seem to leave any kind of residue behind. He discreetly rubbed his arm and tested the area, feeling that it was just softer than before.

That much mucus would normally leave behind a dried layer, but nothing was there.

“What a strange result. The worst I get covered in on the job is tree sap,” he laughed. He had started to braid Mabel’s hair, not seeming to mind when she leaned on him. His hands continued at a practiced pace despite the odd angle.

“Lucky me. I’d rather be covered in...whatever this is than tree sap. That stuff never comes out.” He poured his glass of juice then chugged it, wanting to get into the shower before he needed to leave. There was no telling how long Bill would actually stay asleep, and he didn’t want to chance it being awake before he got back.

As soon as he put the orange juice away, he gave the couple a short wave then hastily made his way back upstairs, not wanting all of the stuff to dry before he could wash it off. Though he _did_ want to see what would happen when he got the dry, covered areas wet. That would be his way of knowing if it really did leave any residue behind, and he could better determine what it was.

While the shower was warming up, Dipper stuck his hand under the stream of water to see how the dried slime would react.

There was no chemical reaction of any kind, which Dipper was thankful for because he was covered in it. In fact, all that seemed to happen was that his hand got wet. It still felt soft when he rubbed his fingers together, but nothing really came off or rehydrated back into slime.

With a shrug, Dipper finished getting undressed and got into the shower, noticing that the ooze that hadn’t dried came right off. That made him at least feel better about it not being mucus. He really didn’t feel like starting his day covered in alien snot.

A warm shower and another glass of orange juice and some toast later, and Dipper was finally on his way to the store. The Stanmobile had given out a year or so ago, so Stan reluctantly bought a new car, one that Mabel and Ford had insisted be the latest model, so Dipper was able to drive into town comfortably in the shiny silver sedan.

He wasn’t sure exactly _what_ he would need, but he at least knew that he would need to get more food that Bill could eat. It seemed to enjoy the raw meat it ate the night before, so he figured he’d buy a bunch of that, even though that would end up being pretty expensive. He just hoped that what he bought would last the week, which was hopefully the longest the alien would stay.

Finding the meats was easy enough, and by the time Dipper had loaded his cart with it, it looked like he was about to throw a giant barbeque. It didn’t help that the snack aisle was so close, the chips and candy practically begging Dipper to buy them. Mabel would also be less mad about how much he was spending if he brought her home some soda and chocolate.

He wandered the store for a little while longer, picking up some extra soaps and a toothbrush in case it needed to brush its teeth, then decided he’d better head home.

“Having a party?” the cashier joked.

“Uh, kind of. Just a few family members. Better safe than sorry, right?” he laughed a bit awkwardly.

“For sure,” the teen agreed.

The short exchange thankfully didn’t last long, and Dipper was on his way with his groceries.

“Have a good one,” the cashier called after him.

“You too,” Dipper smiled.

On his way out the doors, a man that Dipper wasn’t sure he had ever seen before bumped into his cart, knocking the handle back into Dipper and knocking the wind out of him. The man very quietly apologized but didn’t move out of his way.

“Ah, it’s cool man. Stuff happens.” He huffed and put on his best smile. Part of the reason he hated going out so much was that every interaction he had seemed to be like this. Horribly awkward and time-consuming. He needed to get back to Bill and make sure Tad had left for work so that he wouldn’t run into the alien.

The taller man had short, spiky, dirty blond hair and was wearing sunglasses, making him look like a bit of a douche. He waved his hand at Dipper but didn’t say much else, and didn’t move until after he had silently stood there for just long enough that it made Dipper’s skin crawl. The dude gave off a bad vibe, but as soon as Dipper was able to get to his car, he shook the encounter off.

Contacting Ford was all that he could think of on his way back home. Would he be mad at Dipper at all? Was he going to want to rush home to help fix the ship? Was he going to know what species Bill was, or was he going to be just as surprised as Dipper was about the alien?

Dipper let his questions eat away at him until the car was parked, then he pushed them aside. He was going to check on Bill after putting the groceries away, then worry about making the call out to Ford.

Luckily Tad’s dorky Jeep was gone, so he was able to carry in the bags of meat inside without question. Mabel gave him one odd look before shrugging and started to help him unpack the bags.

“Bill hasn’t gotten up yet. Does his species just like, sleep all day? Do you think he’s nocturnal? And why did you have alien slime all over you this morning?” She paused for a moment then slapped his arm. “Dipper Pines, did you fuck the alien? ‘Cause one time grunkle Stan told me that Ford-”

“Ah! Mabel! No, I did not sleep with it! Er, well, like, it crawled into bed with me, but I didn’t have sex with it! It might not even _have_ genitals. Well, it _did_ say it was like us mammals, so maybe…” He shook his head and waved his hands back and forth. “Change of subject! Anyway, it told me that it needed more sleep than humans do, I guess, so I figure I’ll let it sleep as much as it wants because it’s easier to hide it that way.”

She rolled her eyes as she opened the fridge to put the meat away. “Why do you keep calling Bill an it? Like, Bill is usually a dude's name, so maybe Bill is a he.” She stacked some of the packages into one of the drawers and scowled when they wouldn’t all fit into one. “ _Or,_ I could be wrong and Bill is a she. Or neither. You could always ask.”

Dipper rolled up one of the now empty plastic bags and put it under the counter where they kept the others. “Didn’t I _just_ say we weren’t going to talk about its genitals anymore? It doesn’t seem to really care what I call it, so it’s fine.” He handed her the bag that had the candy and slid the soda over to her. “Finish putting this stuff away and you can have the candy. I’m going to make sure my bed isn’t soaked in alien goop.”

He decided to leave out the fact that he was going to call their grunkles. If Mabel knew she would make a big deal of it, and he really just wanted to get it out of the way, not spend hours on the phone while Mabel tells Stan about her and Tad’s relationship.

The trip to the store and back had taken about an hour and a half, so he was hoping that the alien might sleep just a little longer so that he could actually make the call without it overhearing anything. Not that he had anything bad to say, but just in case Ford did, he didn’t want to chance pissing the alien off.

Thankfully the alien was still buried under the pile of blankets, a low, rumbling purr sounding through the room. It was still really hot in there, but Dipper had a gut feeling that if he opened the window Bill would complain about it, so he left the alien in its self-made oven.

Ford’s secure landline that could call out even in the worst of conditions was down in his lab, which made Dipper’s life a little easier. He would need to grab some tools and stuff from down there anyway, so it would kill two birds with one stone.

Everything about the lab screamed how unorganized Ford could be, though, so it took him some time to actually find the large phone. It was simple and a gross cream color, but Dipper was happy to find it when he pulled back a blanket that was rested on top of one of his desks.

The number to call Ford’s matching phone that he was able to take with him was taped to the back of it, and as it rang, Dipper started to wonder if they were even going to be awake to hear it. If not, then he supposed he could leave a voicemail and wait for him to get back with him.

A beep informed Dipper that Ford was, in fact, not there or asleep and didn’t hear the phone, so he decided that he would leave a message with the rundown of what he was dealing with.

“Hey, grunkle Ford. So, uh, I kind of have a bit of a problem. I may have accidentally caused an alien to crash its ship here, and now I’m hiding it here at the shack and promised to fix its ship. I don’t know what kind of alien he- er, it, whatever it is, but I just wanted to ask you about it in case you just so happened to know how to actually fix that kind of ship. Anyway, love you guys and I’ll keep the phone around so I can catch your response. Bye.”

Cringing at how quickly he spoke, Dipper gripped the phone tightly as he hung up. He carried it up the stairs with him, chewing on his bottom lip. Ford would likely know how to handle the situation even if he hadn’t heard of Bill’s species before, so for the time being Dipper would just have to flounder a little until he got a response.

“Can’t you at least _try_ it cooked? I bet I can make those slimy taste buds sing!” Mabel’s voice carried in through the gift shop, which was closed that day because neither of them wanted to work Sundays, and it was obvious that she was talking to Bill.

The alien must’ve woken up shortly after Dipper had checked on it, and was currently sitting in the same chair it had the night before. A plate was in front of him, and Mabel was holding an unopened package of meat to her chest.

“Might make me ill,” Bill sighed. “Just want it this way. Can sparkle, but no cook.”

Mabel’s eyes lit up and she moved to place the package on the counter to open it. “I have _plenty_ of edible glitter to make this less gross looking.” She skipped off to the pantry to dig out her glitter, and Dipper took the time to hide the phone in his jacket before sitting down.

“You’re going to force the alien to eat glitter because you don’t like the way its food looks?” Dipper laughed. “What if it makes you sick, Bill?”

Bill shrugged and gave Dipper an odd look. “Worth. I like it.” It sharply turned away from Dipper and looked to Mabel. The two started to have a conversation, and Bill purposefully left Dipper out of it multiple times.

It was fair to assume the alien was upset with him, though that would be a little weird to assume after the cuddle session they had had in the morning. Maybe Bill’s species cuddled regardless of anger, or it was really just cold and saw no other way to warm up. Dipper would have to look into it later if he had the time. He was still going to try and get the alien home as quickly as possible, and if he had to give up researching a new species so that he didn’t have to wake up covered in slime, well, he would be okay with that.

“Glitter tastes sweet,” Bill mumbled after a few bites of his raw steak. “But chews weird.”

“Oh yeah, this stuff’ll get stuck in your teeth for _weeks._ Dip, please tell me you bought the alien a toothbrush.” Mabel had cooked her and Dipper some Mac and Cheese, her plate covered in so many other shiny and strange things that it was almost impossible to tell that it _was_ Mac and Cheese.

“Of course I did,” he said as he set his fork on his plate. “I want to make Bill as comfortable as I can. It’s my fault Bill’s here anyway.”

Bill gave him a strange look yet again and Dipper sighed.

Ford needed to respond fast because Dipper just wasn’t sure how well he and Bill were going to get along. If Bill couldn’t get over it being Dipper’s fault that he was there, then his next week was going to be filled with the cold shoulder, and he knew it would be hard to work with Bill if it were going to be like that.

“We’re going to start working on your ship as soon as we’re done eating, okay?” Dipper offered a smile but was met with raised eyebrows and an unimpressed, almost bored look.

Dipper repressed another sigh and looked down at his plate. It was definitely going to be a long week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! :D <3


	4. Learning the Basics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaahhh writing, my old friend. Fuck writer's block tbh
> 
> Didn't edit much so forgive errors and weird stuff :p
> 
> Also I know some people have been asking what Bill looks like exactly, so here's a thing I drew:  
> http://i.imgur.com/acdrbPB.jpg
> 
> Here's more of this fluffy thing that honestly is still filled with set up because it's like, what, the fourth chapter now? I can't even be bothered to look but yeeeeeah. Still some good developments, though, so that's rad.
> 
> Enjoy!~

The ship looked to be in better shape than Dipper had originally thought it was. The fact that Bill was still able to get it up in the air for long enough to move it was a good sign, and when he really looked at the damage in the daylight, it was mostly a matter of cleaning branches, pine needles, mud, and sap from things, then welding things back together. Of course, that would still take a few days to fully accomplish, but Dipper was hopeful that a week was all that it would take.

“Sticky smells weird,” Bill mumbled. It was up underneath the ship, stiffly standing between the jagged, cut open metal. “Trees gross.”

Dipper laughed and shrugged, careful not to bump anything. He was also wedged between some metal, trying to pull a branch from somethings that he was pretty sure were gears of some sort. “You don’t have trees on your planet? You clearly have to have oxygen there, or else you wouldn’t be able to breathe here. Where does your air come from?”

“Not enough words,” it said bluntly.

“Right, sorry…” Dipper was surprised that it had even said that it didn’t like trees, so he wasn’t sure why he had been expecting Bill to try and explain something to him. It had been pretty quiet to him all day that day, only speaking when it wanted to complain about something. Even then, though, Dipper was pretty sure it was talking to itself.

After giving up on the stuck branch, Dipper took the damp rag from his pocket and started to wipe down one of the pipes. There was so much mud and dirt all over things, some of it caked on from two rough landings. There was no chance in Hell were they getting it all cleaned off in one sitting.

“Uh, hey, maybe we should take a break soon. I don’t know how long your species can work before you get tired, but mine can only do it for a few hours.” He finished wiping the mud off of the pipe then tilted his head to look around a piece of metal sticking out.

Bill narrowed its eyes at Dipper when their stares met, then looked back the bigger piece of wood it was trying to pry from part of the ship. “Why humans are so weak? _You_ can break, _I_ will fix for now.”

Dipper’s shoulders slumped and he huffed. “I’ll stay and help for a little while longer. But we should both break and do lunch soon, or Mabel will come out and make us stop.”

The piece of wood it was pulling at came loose and it chucked it away from them, an annoyed expression on its face. Something made a loud _clunk_ and Bill groaned.

“Broke more,” it mumbled. It stepped out from under the ship and walked over to a tree, growling. “Fine, break. More angry than start now.” It stomped over to Dipper, grabbing his arm before trying to yank him out from underneath its ship. “Let’s glitter food.”

Dipper ducked down so that his head didn’t hit the jagged metal and yelped when Bill pulled on him. He wasn’t expecting the strength of it and was nearly flung into a tree when he lost his footing. “Dude! I can move on my own. You just almost hurt me, don’t pull on me like that. You’re way bigger than I am and can do some serious damage.”

Bill let go of his hand and stepped back, giving him a genuinely confused look. “Pulling breaks you?”

“Well, it _can,_ ” he grunted as he straightened himself. “I’m sure if you wanted to, you could really do a number on-” Dipper stopped himself and chuckled nervously. “Well, not like you meant to do it anyway, and I’m fine. Let’s go feed you.”

It didn’t seem like Bill had any intentions of harming or eating Dipper, but he didn’t think it was really all that wise to remind the alien that he was pretty much helpless against it, should it change its mind.

They walked back in silence, the only sound being Bill’s feet crushing fallen branches underfoot. It made Dipper wonder exactly how much it weighed and how on Earth his bed was able to handle both of them cuddling on it. He would just have to tell Bill not to jump on it or move too much if it was going to be in bed with him.

His pace slowed and he squinted down at the ground. Apparently, in his mind, Dipper was already prepared to have Bill cuddle with him again. It wasn’t really like he could tell it _no,_ though. Chances were it was just going to crawl into bed with him late in the night again regardless to keep warm, so he might as well give it some rules to make the situation a little less messy.

Of course, it was going to be a little hard to avoid mess when Bill literally oozed slime. It didn’t seem to have any on it despite having just cleaned up the ship a little bit, so it was probably something it did primarily in its sleep.

Bill walked up to the shack super casually, flinging the door open and ducking its head under the doorway. Its tail was flicking back and forth playfully but he kept himself hunched down low as if he were about to run up and pounce on something.

Dipper followed it inside and followed it to the front room.

“Glitter!” Bill tried to jump on the couch and sit next to Mabel, who was knitting a scarf with yarn that had reflective bits in it, but fumbled a bit and instead the claws on its feet tore through the cushion and it face planted into the back of it. “Small!”

“Yeah, Bill, you’re too big to jump on the couch!” Mabel shot up and gathered her project into her arms. “Dipper, fix this and teach the alien how to sit and _not_ break stuff when it’s excited.” Passing him with her tongue stuck out, Mabel retreated to her room, leaving Dipper with Bill, who hadn’t moved and still had its face mashed into the couch.

“Bill, get up so I can flip the cushion.” He lightly tapped the alien’s back and stepped away from it when it carefully peeled itself off of the couch.

“Almost you now seat. Not fix?” It stood up straight and shimmied like a wet dog.

Dipper grabbed the cushion and inspected it before flipping it. Its feet hadn’t torn it too badly, but there were still three deep gashes. “Nah, Mabel knows I can’t sew. She just wants me to flip it until she can get to it.” He didn’t miss how Bill seemed to realize just how powerful and large it was. Hopefully, that meant it would be more aware of how rough it was being.

It snorted and turned to make its way into the kitchen, determined to get lunch, which Dipper agreed wasn’t a bad idea. Cleaning the ship definitely made him hungry.

“Oh, shoot, Mabel didn’t keep some of the meat in the fridge, we’ll have to wait for some to thaw.” Dipper pulled a package of meat out and set it on the counter, then placed a few of them in the fridge so that it wouldn’t be a problem later. He would hate to see what happened when something like Bill got hangry.

“Tha-aw?” Bill made a chittering sound after he said the word and picked the frozen meat up. “You made it too cold.”

Closing the fridge, Dipper turned to watch the alien eye the meat and laughed when it poked it. “We have to keep it cold or else it’ll go bad and probably make you sick.” He grabbed the meat from Bill and put it in the sink to run hot water over it. “You just have to wait until it unfreezes.”

Bill snorted and crossed its arms. “If not weak and hunted would be fresh always,” it said in a snotty voice.

Dipper rolled his eyes and grabbed some ramen from the pantry for himself. Bill wasn’t about to let up on the humans being weak thing and it still seemed a little sour towards him despite how apologetic it had been for almost hurting him. “We used to, y’know. We don’t do it now because we don’t need to.”

It shrugged and made its way to the sink to watch the meat thaw. “Water?” It said when it pointed to the sink.

“Yeah, it’s hot, though, so don’t-” Before Dipper could finish Bill ducked its head down and started to drink the water from the faucet, not seeming to mind the heat of it. “-drink it,” he finished in a flat tone.

While he finished making his noodles, he watched Bill watch the meat thaw. It must’ve found the process interesting. ...Or it was trying to ignore Dipper. Dipper was going to go with the latter. It wasn’t like he needed Bill to be his best friend, but he would like it if the alien was at least a little friendlier to him. It seemed happy enough to see Mabel and her glitter, why couldn’t it be at least happy that Dipper was being so nice to it? Not like he would be mean, but he could be way less accommodating.

“How long wait?” Bill stood up straight and its pupils narrowed when it looked at him.

“Uh, probably not too long,” Dipper said as he sat at the table. “Poke it and see if it’s squishy.”

Bill raised a brow at him but did as it was told. It gave a few pokes before it seemed to get frustrated and stopped. “Not sure, just wanna eat it.”

“Well, I mean, if you feel comfortable eating it now then do what you want. It’s probably still frozen in the middle, though.”

It grabbed the meat from under the water and used its sharp claw to rip the plastic open. Slushy-like blood dripped out and spilled on the floor with a _splat_ that Bill was interested in for about two seconds before its attention was back on getting the meat out.

Dipper cringed at the crunching noise it made when Bill bit into the slab of beef, trying not to laugh when Bill made a face. “Too cold?”

Its expression changed and it glared at him, slowly chewing the bite it had taken. “...No.”

“It’s okay to think it’s too cold, Bill, I won’t think you’re ‘weak’ if you don’t want to eat it that way,” he laughed.

Despite what Dipper said, Bill continued to eat it as if it didn’t mind the literal ice chunks. More of the frozen blood spilled out, some getting on its arms making Dipper realize that Bill was covered in dirt, mud, and tree sap. He looked down at himself and saw that he wasn’t much cleaner.

“We need to take a shower.” He slurped up some noodles and his mind immediately went to how cozy Bill was in bed, and how it probably would think that was allowed at other times too. “N-not like, together, but y’know. Separate showers. To get clean.”

It looked down at itself and popped the last bit of frozen meat into its mouth. “Fix more ship first. Will just get more dirty then.”

“Right, right. Let me finish eating and we’ll go back out.” He quickly finished his food so that Bill wouldn’t get tired of waiting for him. He definitely didn’t need Bill to dislike him even more, especially for stupid little things like taking too long to eat.

He cleaned up what he could in the kitchen, making sure to get the blood off the floor so that Mabel wouldn’t freak out about it later, then gave himself a quick wipe-down with a washcloth to at least clear off some of the gunk.

The sound of a car pulling up around the front stopped him from trudging back out the back door. He froze in place, making Bill cock his head to the side.

“Stay here for a sec.” The shop was never busy enough in the off season to keep it unlocked and monitored by anyone, so there was a slim chance that it could be a tourist checking to see if it was open, but a bad feeling was swirling around in his gut, growing as he went to peek out the window.

A sleek, black car was parked haphazardly a few yards away from the front door and two men in suits stepped out. They were too tidy to be tourists, and their sunglasses and clean-cut hairstyles told him that they were likely with some sort of organization.

About a million things ran through Dipper’s head as they walked to the door. They could be the usual men in black that come to question Stan about his taxes. Or they were about to come and ask about Bill, which, after the ruckus they had made, he was guessing it was more likely that.

Luckily, Stan and Ford both had procedures in place to help lock things up and pretend they weren’t home when unwanted visitors came around.

“Mabel!” He said in a loud whisper as he ran to her room. “Mabel, time to lock up!”

His twin darted out of her room, some of her glittery yarn stuck in her hair. “Who’s here?” She said in an unusually serious tone.

A loud knock on the gift shop door made Dipper’s insides shake and he started to close any curtains he could find.

“Two guys, both in black suits. I don’t know if they know about Bill or what, but either way, I don’t think now is the time to invite them in for cookies.” He flew passed Bill who looked just as panicked as he was, but the alien stayed in place and just watched Dipper zip around locking things up.

Mabel had joined in and flipped a switch near the TV that put the basement into lockdown, which Ford had installed to make sure no one could get into the basement no matter what happened should they need the safe room. “They’re not going to let up if they think Bill’s here. I’m going to have to answer and talk to them, but you should go hide Bill in your room and make sure they don’t have anyone else sneaking around.”

Dipper was a little surprised at how stern Mabel sounded. It was probably only because she knew how serious it would be if they found Bill, and he was thankful that she was on board with helping. “Right, good plan.”

If there was anyone that could get someone to go away, it was Mabel. She knew what pushed people’s buttons, and with how stuffy those guys looked, it wouldn’t be long before they were wanting to run away.

“C’mon, Bill. We need to go up to my room.” He grabbed Bill’s hand and tried to pull it along, but wasn’t able to budge it at all. “What are you doing, we have to hide you!” He snapped.

Bill pulled its arm away from him and narrowed its eyes. “If run, I make noise. Let me sneak. Too heavy.”

Dipper stepped back and huffed. “Right, sorry. Go up to the room at your own pace. Your heavy footsteps will make too much noise.”

It nodded and crouched down a little before taking long strides across the room. It made it to the stairs quicker than Dipper thought it would and he let out a sigh of relief when the stairs didn’t groan too loudly under its weight.

“I’ll get them to leave, trust me bro-bro,” Mabel laughed darkly as she made her way to the gift shop.

Her tone returning to its usual jokiness helped ease his fraying nerves, which made it easier for him to go check the back to make sure there was no one snooping. He would have to ask Bill about making sure the ship could be cloaked again soon since it was out in the open right then. It was in a thick part of the woods, but if someone wanted to, they could easily find it.

As far as he could see through the windows, no one else seemed to be around the shack, so he figured he’d better go wait it out with Bill up in his room. He’d be able to see more through the attic windows anyway.

Bill was sitting on the floor against his bed, loudly purring. It seemed distressed at first, but Dipper walking in made its expression change to a more annoyed one and the purring died down.

“How long this will take?” It said as it stood up, only to go lie on its bed. “Long enough for short sleep?”

Dipper laughed and sat down on his own bed, doing his best to keep any dirt or mud from getting on it. “You mean a nap? Probably, but I don’t think it would be wise to sleep when we might need to move around. Also, we need to shower before we get too comfortable.” He bit his bottom lip and fiddled with his hands in his lap. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back out today either. We’ll go out first thing tomorrow and get at least the cloaking thing on your ship working again, but for today we should lay low.”

It groaned over its dimmed purring. “Fine,” it grumbled.

Everything grew quiet for a while and the two stayed in a strangely peaceful silence. Dipper ended up lying back on his bed and staring at the ceiling while thinking about what he was going to say when Ford got back to him. He had the phone in his jacket still and hadn’t heard it go off, so he was just assuming that his grunkles were busy with something important. He would try them again in a day or so if he still hadn’t heard back from them.

“Dip-a-lip, the dudes are gone!” Mabel sang as she pranced up the stairs. She barged into his room and leaned against the door frame, folding her arms over her green tank top. “They totally were asking about Bill. Not directly, but like, they were pulling that Batman voice and asking if I had seen anything weird. I told them _yes_ and went on for a good twenty minutes about how weird a rock looked. They had to interrupt me to say that they had to go,” she laughed. “To be fair, it really is a weird rock!”

Bill sat up and blinked at her. “Does it glitter?”

Mabel let out a loud, genuine laugh and she slapped her knee. “No, but we can make it sparkle!”

“Showers first,” Dipper said sternly. “We’re gross and I don’t want it parading around the house covered in mud.” Knowing that he would need to walk Bill through the showering process, Dipper got up and sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s do that now before we make our beds too gross to sleep in.”

Dipper made Bill strip once behind the shower curtain so that he could hand its clothes over to Mabel to wash them. He would need to find some other clothes for it to wear, but he was sure that he had something lying around that would work.

“Okay, so turn the knob to the left until it’s at a temperature you like, then pull up the small thing on the faucet. It’ll spray water over you.” Dipper was sitting on the toilet lid in his boxers, trying not to focus on how cold the bathroom was.

It turned the water on and let it run for a minute before pulling up the tab. It had to crouch down to get the water to hit the top of its head, but it seemed to do okay and understand the concept of washing itself off.

The room eventually filled with steam and it made Dipper relax up until he realized that Bill was using all of the hot water and he would have to take a cold shower.

“Don’t take too long, just get clean then be done. I have a towel ready for you when you’re done.”

Bill let out an annoyed trill and made what Dipper assumed to be a rude hand gesture over the top of the shower curtain. “This is warm.”

“Yeah, because you’re using all of the hot water. You can get warmed up again when you get out.” He crossed his arms and stuck his tongue out at the alien despite it not being able to see him.

It went quiet for a moment, but then made a questioning sound at something. “What is doing in here?”

Usually, Dipper could kind of get what Bill meant, but the sentence made no sense to him so he sighed and figured he’d better figure out what it meant rather than ignore it. “What is what doing in here? Like in here, the bathroom, or in there with you?”

A weird squish sound made Dipper stand up and try to look and see what Bill had just done.

“This is not good!” The shower curtain was suddenly pushed back and Bill held its hand out to Dipper, Mabel’s bar of pink, glitter soap with a bite taken out of it in its grip. “Colorful and smells good, but not taste!”

It was impossible to stop himself from laughing so Dipper took a moment to collect himself before grabbing the soap from Bill. “Just get out of the shower, you’re clean enough.” He kept his eyes from wandering while the alien stepped out of the shower and collected the towel from the counter.

“This dry?” It asked before mashing the towel against its face.

“Yeah, use it to dry off while I rinse off.” He stepped in the still running shower after sliding his boxers off and yelped when he was met with the burning hot water. “Holy fuck, Bill! Too hot!” Turning the knob over to the cold, Dipper rubbed at his chest where the hot water had hit him.

“Is fine for _me,_ ” it teased.

Dipper closed the shower curtain in a huff and started to clean himself off. Thankfully his hair hadn’t gotten much dirt in it, but he still decided to shampoo and condition it.

“What is that you let me ate?” Bill asked while it waited for Dipper.

“I didn’t _let_ you do anything,” Dipper scoffed. “ _You_ saw a bar of soap and decided to take a bite out of it.” He gave his hair a final rinse and shut the shower off, not thinking much about how he was about to step out naked in front of Bill.

The alien’s eyes wandered to his crotch right away and out of reflex Dipper covered himself with his hands. “Whoa there, pal, let’s not get too friendly,” he chuckled nervously. He kept his eyes to himself and hurried to the towel on the counter. “Wrap it around your waist like I do or we can’t leave the room. We don’t need you running around the house naked.”

Bill did as he was told and followed Dipper back to his room, where unfortunately there weren’t any pants of his that would accommodate Bill’s tail. He had cargo shorts that would be fine if they cut a hole into them, but he didn’t trust himself enough to do even that right. He would need Mabel to do it.

“Alright, I’ll get dressed and lend you a shirt at least, but Mabel will need to help with these,” he said as he waived the pants around. Dipper got into his comfortable sweats and a baggy, blue T-shirt, then handed Bill his biggest gray one. “It’ll probably fit you a little weird, but it’s better than nothing.”

It struggled to get it on at first, but after it tugged the shirt on it seemed happy enough about it. “Better than being cold,” it agreed.

With Dipper being dressed and Bill having at least a shirt and towel on, they went to go find Mabel downstairs to help cut the shorts to fit Bill. Dipper didn’t mind ruining the pair, but he made a mental note to go out and get some specifically for Bill when the heat had died down from those men in black. Hopefully, they wouldn’t come back in the week it would take to fix Bill’s ship.

“You couldn’t do this, Dip? It’s literally cutting a hole into fabric,” she snorted.

“Yeah, but you can do it wrong. I would probably cut it too high or something. _You_ know how to do this stuff.” He tossed her the pair and she caught them while rolling her eyes.

It took her a moment of eyeballing them and Bill, occasionally getting up to hold them up to Bill, but she eventually trotted off to get scissors from her room, returning with the shorts perfectly cut.

“I’ll probably want to hem the edges later, but for now these will work.” She proudly held them out to the alien and sat down next to Dipper at the table. “Hopefully it’ll fit over those thunder thighs. If not I can adjust them, but it’ll take me a while.”

Bill lifted the pants to his face and wiggled them a little, then held them by the waist while it dropped the towel.

Dipper’s face turned a deep red while Mabel let out a low whistle and laughed. Bill was most _definitely_ a male. It was impossible to keep his eyes from noticing the lower half of the alien, and he found himself staring despite his want to look away. It looked mostly like a human’s genitalia, but the tip was more pointed and it seemed like it was actually ribbed along the sides.

“Wow, well, now we know what his junk looks like!” Mabel said as she nudged Dipper. “With the size of that, though, I don’t think it’s _safe_ to fuck this alien, so keep it in your pants, Dippin’ Dots.”

He wasn’t sure if his face could turn a darker shade of red, but he was sure that if she kept talking he was going to pass out from too much blood in his cheeks. “Mabel, stop! I’m not going to fuck the alien, good god. He’s going to be here for like a week max then he’ll be off, that’s not even enough time to form any kind of bond.”

“Don’t need a bond to fuck, Dipper. You two _do_ sleep in the same room-”

“Stop, okay, okay, we’re done with this conversation.” He stood from his chair and looked Bill over now that he had pulled the shorts on. “We should probably find something quiet to do for the day, so how about I show you some Earth TV shows?”

Bill shrugged and shimmied his hips so that the shorts rested a little better on them. “Fine, but must work hard on fixing when we don’t lay low again.”

“For sure. Tomorrow we’ll go out and get as much as we can done.”

“Next time not let me eat what in the shower when we clean,” he said, crossing his arms.

Mabel got up and poked Dipper’s shoulder. “You let him eat something in the shower?”

Bill nodded and pointed at Dipper. “Soap. Did not warn me.”

She smacked his arm and her face scrunched up. “You let him eat my soap! I made that myself, Dipper! Now I have to make more!”

He swatted her hand away and huffed. “I didn’t let him do anything, it- he just did it on his own! I’m not exactly in control of him or anything!” Dipper turned on his heels and stomped off towards the living room. “I’ll be watching TV. You two can talk about how horrible I am for ‘letting him eat soap’.”

Dipper wasn’t really too offended, he knew Mabel was mostly making a show because she would actually have to make herself more soap, but he wasn’t going to stand around and let her turn Bill on him even more.

Not long after he turned the TV on, Bill quietly made his way into the front room as well. He sat next to Dipper carefully, clearly remembering what happened earlier when he had jumped on the couch.

They sat in silence for an entire episode of a cartoon Dipper didn’t really know much about, only to have Bill break it with a soft trill.

“Hungry,” he whined.

“Yeah, I bet you are after eating a hunk of frozen meat and soap,” he said a bit harshly. He looked at Bill and saw him staring back at him with wide eyes, almost like he was confused by Dipper’s harsh tone. “Alright, let’s go get you some food. I’m sure the meat in the fridge is thawed enough. We can even put it in the oven just long enough to make it body temp so that it feels like you’re eating something you’ve just killed.”

Bill titled his head and happily followed Dipper into the kitchen for food. He seemed all too eager to slightly cook the meat, and it made Dipper wonder how much easier it might be to actually let him go out and hunt a live animal.

“We should probably head to bed early tonight if we’re going to be getting up to fix the ship all day tomorrow,” Dipper said as he pulled the meat from the oven. It was warm enough to touch, but far from cooked.

“After food,” Bill said as he dug his claws into the chunk of beef. He let out a pleased hum when he bit into it, blood dribbling down his chin as he chewed. Slightly cooking the meat was something Dipper would definitely have to do every time.

“You just took a shower and now you’re gross again.” Dipper got a washcloth from a drawer and got it wet for when Bill finished. “So, does that usually fill you up or do you need more?”

Bill hummed and licked his lips. “This fine, just need more often.”

Dipper gave a short nod and again the two fell into a lull in the conversation. It wasn’t awkward, at least, but he was hoping that soon he and Bill would be able to talk more freely and that he wouldn’t be so cold to him at times.

Hopefully with a little more time, before Bill would leave, he would get to that point with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill, don't eat the fucking soap, what the Hell
> 
> Comments and kudos always appreciated :3 <3


	5. Scratching the Surface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ........................
> 
> Been a while, hasn't it? :D BUT HERE WE ARE NOW, SO IT'S OKAY.
> 
> Honestly, this chapter is only happening rn because I opened my writing commissions and was paid to do this lmao I would've gotten back to it eventually, but yeah, they wanted it sooner than that ((and I don't blame them lol)) so here it is. 
> 
> Enjoy!~

Bill and Dipper had retired to bed sometime around nine, which was extremely early for Dipper. It took him a while to fall asleep, though, because he didn’t even fight with Bill about sleeping in his own bed and the alien was  _ uncomfortable.  _ Bill passed out an hour or so before Dipper did and started to sweat the ooze all over the bed, making it way too hot.

Eventually, sleep did come, but Dipper was woken up all too soon by his alarm clock. He reached over to his nightstand and tapped around the screen until the beeping stopped. With Bill lying on top of him, Dipper was unable to convince himself to get out of bed. As much as he hated to admit it, the alien felt comfortable and the ooze wasn’t so bad once he got used to them. Of course, that could just be his tired brain talking.

He fell back asleep for a little while, waking up to a pinching feeling on his chest. Bill’s hand was clenched tightly, bunching Dipper’s shirt up in a fist. He opened and closed it again, repeating the action over and over, his claws occasionally scratching Dipper’s skin.

“Ow, Bill, knock it off.” Dipper wiggled under him, trying to push the alien off. “It’s time to get up anyway.”

Bill made a low gurgling growl sound and stopped scratching at the brunet’s chest. He shifted just enough to look up at Dipper, his eyes narrowed in a scowl. “Sleep more or I will eat you.”

Dipper rolled his eyes and tried to shove Bill off again. “You need me to help fix your ship, you wouldn’t eat me. Now get up.”

The blond chuckled and moved up a little, resting his head on Dipper’s collar bone. His long tongue pressed up against Dipper’s neck, licking until he got to the side of his cheek. “Mm,” he hummed.

A horrible chill made Dipper cringe and he sighed in defeat. Bill wouldn’t really eat him - probably- but he knew he wasn’t going to win this fight. “Okay, alright, fine. No more licking though, that was weird.”

Bill purred contently with his victory and stretched, further covering Dipper with the ooze and his lanky limbs. “Wake later,” he yawned.

Looking at his phone, Dipper realized that he  _ really _ shouldn’t have let Bill sleep more because it was noon already and they had work to do. The faster they got the ship done, the faster Bill could go home, which would make those men in black finally leave them alone.

Unable to fall back asleep, Dipper played on his phone for a little while. He wasn’t into social media much like Mable was, but scrolling through stupid pictures for an hour was never hard to do, and it was just long enough that Bill finally moved off of him.

“Too early for hungry,” he complained, his eyes still closed. “But hungry.”

Dipper rolled his eyes, pulling himself out of bed. “Yeah, well, that just means we should get up,” he yawned.

Taking a shower would be more work than Dipper was willing to do before he ate breakfast and he knew the slime would dry on its own anyway, so instead, he changed his outfit and used some tissues to wipe off what he could of it.

“I’ll go downstairs and make sure Tad isn’t over, then when the coast is clear I’ll yell for you, okay?” He watched as the alien got out of bed, having to pull the blankets off of his sticky skin. The sight was a little disturbing, but he knew the goop was harmless so it didn’t gross him out as badly as it probably should have.

“Will listen for you,” Bill said as he fully stood, stretching his arms out. In the middle of the room where the ceiling was the highest, he couldn’t quite touch the roof, but closer to the bed Bill could easily place his hands on it. “Not be long, thank you.”

Ignoring the alien’s snotty tone, Dipper waved him off as he left, making his way downstairs to peek into the kitchen.

“Mabel?” The lights were off and a pink sticky note was stuck to the fridge, informing Dipper that “prince charming” - Tad - had come and swept Mabel off her feet for a nice lunch at Greasy’s.

Dipper couldn’t help but smile at the note. Even though he didn’t personally like to hang around or talk to Tad, he was at least a nice guy that treated Mabel well. She had had too many crappy boyfriends before him and deserved the affection.

“Okay, Bill! You can come down!” He pulled out one of the packages of meat, opening it and putting it on a cookie sheet so that he could warm it up in the oven for Bill. He seemed like he had enjoyed it the last time, and Dipper wanted him to be in a good mood if they were going to be working together all day.

Bill’s heavy footsteps carried through the house as he made his way to the table, sitting carefully on one of the chairs while looking at the oven. “Making it hot?”

“Well, not  _ hot, _ but warm,” Dipper shrugged. “I’m going to make myself some cereal while we wait for it.”

Having Bill’s wide, glowing eyes watching him made Dipper feel horribly uncomfortable. It was fine that the alien was curious, but the lack of any kind of expression was just creepy and Dipper had to force himself to not think about it while he made his food.

Before sitting down to eat, Dipper tested how hot the meat had gotten. He didn’t want it to be too hot for him to touch, but anything that gave him a chill was no good either.

“I think it needs a little longer. Do you wanna wait?” He closed the oven and looked at Bill, his brows furrowing when he saw that the blond was poking at his cereal.

“What  _ is? _ ” he said as he lifted the spoon and watched milk droplets fall into the bowl.

Dipper walked over and sat down, taking the spoon from Bill. “I told you, it’s cereal. Do you...wanna try some?”

Bill narrowed his eyes at it as if he were suspicious of the breakfast, leaning forward slightly in his seat. “Kind of?”

“Here.” Dipper scooped up a small spoonful, making sure that it wouldn’t drip before lifting the sugary flakes up to Bill’s mouth. “Hopefully this won’t make you sick or something. Feel free to go over to the sink and spit it out if you need to.”

The alien gave a small nod, licking his lips before opening his mouth for Dipper to put the spoon in.

Feeding the alien by hand made Dipper feel some sort of way that he couldn’t explain, and he felt relieved when Bill closed his mouth around the spoon. That went away quickly, however, when he heard a small snap and realized that Bill had bitten off the top of the spoon.

“Oh, n-no, Bill don’t eat-!”

Bill made a  _ very _ sour face and turned his head away, spitting the mouthful out onto the floor before Dipper was able to finish his sentence. The top broken off piece of the spoon landed with a clank on the wood while the rest of it made a disgusting splat that almost made Dipper lose his appetite.

“Nasty! Liquid is nasty!” Bill spat while scraping his teeth over his tongue.

“Really? The milk is the part of that that you didn’t like?  _ Not _ the hunk of metal in your mouth?  _ Really? _ ” Dipper showed him the handle of the spoon, his expression pained because he was trying to hold in a laugh. “You’re not supposed to eat this part, Bill. You just kinda use it as a scoop to drop the food in your mouth then you take it back out.”

The chuckle he was holding in slipped out when Bill stopped and glared at him, his tongue still out and between his teeth.

“Get good food and I will forgive,” he said as he crossed his arms and pouted.

“Forgive?” Dipper scoffed. “You’re the one who wanted to try it!” When Bill didn’t give him a response, Dipper huffed at him and went to grab the meat out of the oven. He was just going to have to accept the fact that Bill was generally a bit of an ass and that it wasn’t  _ just _ because Dipper had crashed his ship. It was still probably a pretty big reason for the sass, though.

They ate in silence once Dipper grabbed a new spoon, throwing the other one away so that Mabel wouldn’t see it and accuse him of letting the alien eat weird stuff again. He had cleaned up the cereal on the floor too, knowing that if it sat there for too long he’d never want to eat that brand again.

Something about Bill’s saliva had made the milk slimy and thicker than normal, leading Dipper think that Bill’s species must really need the weird excretion for something important.

Of course, humans kind of did the same thing with water. Maybe his species made whatever they drank normally into a thicker version of itself to use just as humans did with water. Whatever the case, Dipper was just going to have to deal with it for the week Bill was there.

“What are some of the main things we need to work on in the ship? Is there anything that we should be making a priority?” Dipper asked when he finished his food.

Bill had finished eating way before Dipper, his sharp teeth making quick work of the hunk of meat. “Mm...wires…” The alien looked down for a moment, his eyes narrowing in thought. “Word for...make? No…”

“How about you just show me when we get out there?” Dipper smiled at him. He didn’t want Bill to get frustrated over not being able to think of the right word or something, so he figured offering him the out was the best thing to do before they were stuck in the ship all day together.

“Right,” Bill agreed.

They had to sneak around when they got outside, Dipper keeping his eyes peeled for any black cars hiding around the shack. He didn’t know what they wanted with Bill, but the alien didn’t seem too keen on talking to them, so they likely meant trouble for him.

A thought popped into Dipper’s mind and he had to force it back out as they walked so that he didn’t worry himself. Bill seemed like he was running from something or someone when Dipper had hidden on the ship. What if he was helping a criminal? What if Bill had done something horrible and was trying to escape punishment for it?

Dipper shivered and looked up at Bill, the blond having to duck under a few branches on their path to the ship. He looked like he was deep in thought, barely paying any attention to the fact that the brunet was blatantly staring at him.

Bill’s eyes didn’t glow in the sunlight like they had in the dim light of the house. He wanted so badly to ask Bill about his anatomy or why he looked like he had been fleeing a crime scene, but he knew he wasn’t going to get any answers.

“Board,” Bill said in a quiet voice when they reached the ship. “Inside today. Wires broken.”

“Right, technical stuff. I can probably help with that.” Dipper ducked into the ship after Bill, the sounds of animals in the forest going completely silent when the hatch closed under them. “So, we’ll be in the cockpit then, right?” He pointed to the doorway, only to have Bill give him a weary look.

“Not mess up anything this time,” he huffed. Bill turned away from Dipper and ignored the look of disbelief the brunet was giving him.

“Mess up? I didn’t even touch anything last time! I just...scared you. That’s all.” He stomped in after Bill, jumping back when he was met with the alien’s glowing eyes. The room was pretty dark because the glass was all still caked in mud, so the eery glow of his eyes was all Dipper could really see.

“Mess or not, you still broke it,” he said flatly. “Best maybe you go look for other broken things inside. Tell me if anything.”

“Right,” Dipper said slowly. Bill’s English may not have been very clear, but his tone was. The alien didn’t trust him in the cockpit again. Dipper supposed that was fair because of what happened, but it still seemed like Bill was just trying to avoid spending time with him.

Annoyed but unable to do much about it, Dipper turned on his heels and left Bill to work, his eyes wandering all around the ship for anything that looked like it could be broken. Most of it looked as if the crash hadn’t even affected, all of the hippie-esque decor still in its place.

It wasn’t a very large ship to inspect, but there was another place he could poke around in that looked fairly big. Maybe he could do a little snooping and learn more about Bill.

He had been in the back part of the ship very briefly when he had snuck on, however, he didn’t get a very good look at the room. Now, though, despite how dark it was, he could see that it resembled a pantry or closet of sorts. Drawers lined the walls to either side of him, all labeled in what he assumed was Bill’s language.

Out of curiosity, Dipper opened one to find that it was filled with papers, again in a language he couldn’t read. It was possible that he could sneak some of them off the ship to try and translate down in Ford’s lab, but he didn’t want to risk Bill finding out and getting angry at him. Hell, for all he knew, this could be how aliens kept diaries, and he wasn’t exactly all that interested in reading about Bill’s love life. If the alien had one, that was.

The more he looked at it, the ship was really starting to look like an RV to Dipper, and it made him wonder if Bill just traveled the galaxy by himself doing whatever he felt like. It would explain why he might be out by Earth. Not many aliens came around unless it was to explore, seeing as humans didn’t have anything they really wanted or needed. That’s what Ford had told him, anyway.

Dipper closed the drawer and walked forward, seeing that there was yet another, much smaller, part of the ship. It had a doorway covered in beads as well, something he pushed through with caution. If this really was what Bill spent most or all his time in, it was probably the area he slept in.

What kind of bed would an alien that oozes when he sleeps have? He didn’t seem weirded out by Dipper’s, maybe they didn’t look all that different. Or maybe it was a weird pod that had  _ other _ goo in it like he saw in movies.

He shook his head and instead looked for himself, putting the weird images in his head to an abrupt stop.

The bed took up nearly the entire space, something that didn’t shock Dipper too much because with how big Bill was. Like a lot of other things on the ship it was an ink black color, though there were plenty of yellow blankets on it, all curled up in the center the same way Dipper often found his own bed when Bill was done with it.

“Looks like a bachelor pad,” he joked to himself as he sat on the bed.

Its texture was way too soft for Dipper’s liking. He laid back anyway just to see how the rest of it felt, the cotton-like insides of the mattress feeling comfortable for all of two seconds before the lack of support hurt his back.

Groaning, Dipper sat back up and huffed. He knew he was supposed to be looking for anything that might be broken, but as he sat there he started to realize that Bill had probably just sent him away on an empty errand so that the brunet didn’t bother him.

How the heck was he supposed to get on Bill’s good side? Dipper knew he didn’t need to be best friends with him, but being on speaking terms would at least make the week go by faster. He guessed he’d just have to...try harder. That was all he really  _ could _ do.

Back in the cockpit, Bill was sitting in the pilot’s seat and had some colorful wires in his hands, all of them coming from the control panel in front of him.

“That’s a lot of loose wires. Are you sure you don’t need help with them?” Dipper sat in the chair next to his, having to feel around for it because of the lack of light.

“No help,” Bill mumbled. “Broken?” he asked as he glanced up at Dipper.

“Nah,” Dipper shrugged, scratching the side of his face. He had a stumble growing that he would need to shave soon. “Everything looks fine.”

Bill nodded slowly, his focus on the wires more intense now that Dipper was there.

A quiet sigh left Dipper’s lips and he cursed himself for being so socially awkward. He wasn’t great at talking to or making friends with other humans, how was he supposed to do it with an alien?

“So, do you travel a lot then? This ship looks like it’s meant for vacations or something.” The question seemed harmless enough. It wasn’t too personal, he used a light tone, and it was a good conversation starter. Or, so Dipper thought.

“Sure,” Bill snapped.

Dipper looked down and fidgeted with his hands in his lap, not sure what his next move could be. Why had Bill even wanted him to come with if he wasn’t going to let him help or speak?

“Not mad,” Bill sighed after a while of a heavy silence.

“What?” Dipper looked up and saw Bill staring at him, setting the bundle of wires down for a moment before speaking again.

“Just, focus. Questions take focus. Speak other words, no ask.” He nodded once at Dipper then returned to work.

“Oh,” Dipper said with a bit too much relief in his voice. Knowing that he hadn’t pissed the alien off made Dipper able to relax in his seat, silently thanking Bill for clearing up why he had snapped. He likely didn’t know that it would make Dipper feel better, but it had and that’s what Dipper wanted to focus on. “Okay, well...I’ll tell you a story then. Maybe about...about me and Mabel.”

The alien gave a very small nod, his intense, glowing eyes still stuck on the wires in his hands as he tried to connect and untangle them.

Dipper proceeded to tell him about the time he and Mabel had to break into the mall in the middle of the night to get her cell phone because she “really, really  _ super _ needed it” to text the guy she had met just a few days before to set up a date. She had left it in a changing room, somewhere one of the employees probably hadn’t noticed.

That was when she first started to date Tad, and Dipper couldn’t turn her down when she was stuck on a guy. He knew she would be “forever heartbroken” if he hadn’t helped her, so he reluctantly agreed and they got in and out with...minor complications.

The main minor complication being Mabel almost getting them caught because she laughed at a mannequin that had fallen over and taken down a box of stuffed animals with it. It looked like it was getting mauled by creepy teddy bears and she forced him to stop and take a picture.

Bill laughed at that part of the story, throwing a playful glare at Dipper for breaking his concentration. It was nice to see the alien smile, as terrifying as his teeth were to look at. He knew Bill wouldn’t use them on him, but they still made his skin crawl.

“Break,” Bill groaned after a while of listening to Dipper talk.

He had cut Dipper off in the middle of sharing another story about hiding the remote from Stan, but Dipper didn’t mind. He  _ had _ been talking for quite some time.

“Uh, yeah, sure. Let’s go get food and take a breather.” Dipper stood and wiggled his stiff limbs, not realizing how long they had been sitting there. He peeked at his phone and realized it was already pretty late in the day. Though, they had slept in, it shouldn’t be that surprising to him that it was close to dinner time. “Maybe we can call it a night? We can go watch a movie or something. Or you can take a turn telling me a story. I-if you want to, anyway. I know you can’t speak English all that well, so if you don’t feel like you can then I won’t make you. I just think it would be cool if we, y’know, maybe learned a little bit about each other...while you’re...here…”

Dipper trailed off and cleared his throat, realizing that he was rambling and Bill looked lost. “Let’s just go inside,” he chuckled awkwardly.

“Good with me.” Bill put the rest of the wires under the panel he had taken off then made his way out, Dipper close behind him.

At least Bill didn’t seem to mind that Dipper was a chatter box. He hadn’t told him to shut up or anything until he needed a break from fixing the ship, so that was probably a good thing.

Most of the lights in the shack were off and no extra cars were parked outside, assuring Dipper that he could walk into the shack with Bill without feeling like he needed to hide the blond.

“Mabel? Is anyone here?” He led Bill into the kitchen, the thought of spoon incident from earlier in the day making him laugh.

“No, just me!” she hollered back. “There’s leftovers in the fridge!”

“‘Kay, thanks!” He started to prepare and warm up their food, another chunk of meat for Bill and left over spaghetti for him. Honestly, Dipper hated reheated noodles, but he really didn’t feel like cooking so he dealt with it.

Bill stayed standing while Dipper moved around the kitchen, watching the brunet rather intently. He got close a few times to watch what Dipper was doing when he was using the microwave but mostly kept his distance until their food was done. Neither of them spoke, Dipper because he had worn his voice out telling stories and Bill because he was probably mentally tired from dealing with the technical part of his ship all day.

“Routine,” Bill said suddenly halfway through their meal.

“Routine?” Dipper repeated. “What about a routine?” He stuck his fork into his noodles and made sure to get one of the meatballs on it as well.

“We have routine. Work routine,” the alien clarified. “Wake, eat, work, eat, sleep. Boring? Your species usually do this?”

Dipper shrugged, chewing his mouthful before he spoke. “I mean, I guess,” he mumbled. “This to me is way cooler than like, a real job. But, you’re right. We have fallen into a routine. I think that’s good, though. It just means we’ll get your ship done faster.” He offered Bill a smile, hoping the blond knew that it meant Dipper was okay with the work routine they had fallen into in the last few days. “Then you can go home or keep traveling and get me out of your hair,” he laughed.

Bill looked down at the table, tapping his finger on the wood. “Might take more than your week,” he said cautiously. “Fixing today was worse than I knew. Front is needed and is broken.”

Setting his fork down, Dipper licked his lips and tried to look at Bill. “That’s...fine. I guess if you have to stay, you have to, right?” He sat back in his chair and Bill finally looked up at him, an expression Dipper couldn’t read on his face. “I-I’m sure dodging those men won’t be too hard.”

Though he wasn’t opposed to spending more time with Bill, Dipper’s nerves over the situation started to fray. There was a good chance Bill staying for more than a week would make it harder to hide him and his ship, and he had no idea what would happen if those men in black got ahold of the alien.

“It…” The blond scrunched his face and hummed for a moment, likely looking for the right words. “It is your fault. But also you help, and I like help. Not as mad as before. I am thank you now for help. Could have not help but you did. You aren’t a fuck.”

Dipper couldn’t help but laugh at Bill’s broken English. “I appreciate that, Bill. But is fuck the only English swear word you know?”

“Ass, too. That is swear?” Bill leaned forward, his eyes wide. “There are more? My language is many of them.”

“Yes, and yes. There are a few more. I would teach them to you, but Mabel would probably scold me for it. Fuck is one of the meaner ones, though, so you don’t really need much more than that anyway.” He picked his fork back up and motioned to Bill’s unfinished food. “Right now you should eat and then we’ll talk more before bed. We’ll figure out what to do about the ship tomorrow or this weekend. ...Maybe we’ll take a day off just to plan some stuff out, seeing as you’ll be here longer anyway.”

Bill nodded and picked the meat back up, taking a large bite out of it. “Smart thoughts.”

Everything went quiet again, the silence definitely not as heavy as it had been before. Bill seemed like he accepted that Dipper was just trying to help, and had even thanked him. Getting to know the alien a little better was starting to look promising.

Though, he still had to keep in mind that there was a more serious side to his new, budding friendship. He needed to try Ford and Stan again and ask for help with the ship and what to do about the people after Bill.

Hopefully the men in black wouldn’t be much of a threat now that he and Bill could work like more of a team, but he had to keep in mind that they still could be. Helping Bill stay away from them was Dipper’s responsibility and he had to keep his excitement over the situation from clouding his priorities.

Dipper didn’t know the alien very well or if he was some sort of criminal or not, but he wasn’t about to let someone he stranded on a foreign planet get hurt because of him. Somewhere in his gut, he knew that Bill didn’t deserve that, and he was going to do everything he could to help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're finally starting to get along :D Dipper should've looked a little harder in those drawers tho owo
> 
> Hope you guys liked this! Comments and kudos are always much loved and appreciated! <3


	6. Tour Guide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wuddup dudes, dudettes, and anyone in between
> 
> Here's a new chapter that I think is pretty dope. Hopefully you'll also think it's dope and you'll drop a comment down below to lemme know what you think. Leaving a comment is a quick, easy way to bribe me for faster updates ;D
> 
> Anyway, not a lot happens plot-wise, but Dipper and Bill have some time together, so that's rad.
> 
> Enjoy!~

Early morning coffee was a luxury that Dipper didn’t realize he was missing out on until he finally managed to sneak out of bed when he woke up at eight am. Bill didn’t seem to notice the difference between Dipper and a pillow if the brunet was careful enough, so he escaped the slimy cuddle session and made his way downstairs to have some quiet alone time.

Bill was going to be there for longer than a week. That was definitely something he needed to think over while he had the time to. He would have to find better ways to buy large amounts of meat from the store without seeming weird and determine if he was really okay with the sleeping arrangements.

He  _ had _ already been getting used to Bill lying on top of him and he wasn’t going to lie about liking the company, but the slime was still really odd to him. Would Bill be willing or able to explain to him what it was? What if it was rude to even talk about on his planet?

“Dipper? Wow, you’re out of bed early. And...covered in slime. What is with that, anyway?” Mabel stepped into the kitchen, her huge kitten slippers meowing each time she set a foot down. Her hair wasn’t brushed and she had no makeup on, a relief to Dipper because that meant that no one was coming over for at least a few hours.

He looked down at himself and realized the slime from the night before hadn’t fully dried. Finding an easy way to clean it off or make it dry faster in case Mabel brought anyone over would have to be added to his to-do list. “Turns out whatever Bill is likes cuddling a pillow just as much as he does a warm body,” he shrugged.

“Cuddling?” Mabel wiggled her eyebrows and slid into the seat next to her twin, tenting her fingers on the table. “So you  _ are _ trying to get it in with the alien! You’re too much like Ford, oh my god!”

“No!” Dipper defended, his face burning from her words. “Mabel, he just- They like to keep warm! He sleeps in the bed with me and piles on a million blankets, I wake up all sweaty and covered in ooze, which I think he sweats.” Crossing his arms, Dipper slouched in his chair and huffed. “I’m  _ not _ trying to ‘get it in’ with Bill.”

She put her hands up in defense and hushed him. “Calm down, bro-bro, I’m just messing with you.” Grabbing Dipper’s coffee, she sat back and motioned for him to speak with her free hand. “So, he leaks slime in his sleep to keep warm? Or maybe he does it because he’s trying to make you softer and easier to eat.”

“I feel like something as strong as he is would’ve eaten me already if he was going to.” Dipper glared at her while she chugged  _ his _ coffee, but didn’t say anything. If he and Bill were going to take a break that day then he wouldn’t need the energy anyway. “Besides, he admitted that he needed me to help fix the ship. Can’t eat me if he needs me.”

Mabel set the drink back down, nodding slowly in agreement. She clearly wasn’t actually worried about Bill eating Dipper, but the brunet could sense that  _ something _ was on his twin’s mind and he wanted to talk it out of her before Bill woke up and distracted her.

“Alright, spit it out. Did Tad do something wrong? We can cover his ranger’s seat in super glue. I’m not afraid to prank the man,” Dipper said all too seriously.

“No,” she giggled. “Tad didn’t do anything… It’s just…” She chewed her bottom lip, her smiling fading quickly. “Those men in black keep showing up everywhere I go, Dipper. They definitely know we’re keeping Bill here and I had to tell my lady friends something along the lines of you being involved in a thing with Ford so that we could sneak around town. Why do you think they want him so bad? Is he a wanted space criminal?”

Dipper shrugged, feeling the slime start to dry a little more as he moved. “I’ve thought that kind of thing too, but he seems nice enough. Like I said, if he had any kind of bad intentions, I think he would’ve done something about them by now. And yesterday he even thanked me for being nice. Something tells me they might just want him because they’re the government and they’re nosey.”

“Now you’re sounding like grunkle Stan,” she laughed. “I wonder what those old farts are up to these days, anyway.” Mabel suddenly stood and slammed her hands down on the table, making Dipper jump and cling to his chair. “We should call them! I bet Ford will know how to help with the alien, and Stan will know how to get the men in black off our backs!”

The look of determination on her face made Dipper laugh, but guilt made him clear his throat and look to the floor. “I, uh...I already tried. No answer. I left a message, though, they’ll probably get back to us as soon as they can.” He hoped adding that they didn’t answer would soften the blow. Mabel would know right away why he didn’t tell her about the call and it would probably hurt her feelings.

“Oh,” she said as she sat back down. “When was this?”

“A few days ago,” he said slowly, trying to read his twin’s face. “I just thought I’d make it quick, and I didn’t want Bill to see and get worried that I was doing something bad, or anything like that.”

Mabel eyed him for a moment then shrugged, accepting his silent apology for not telling her about the call. “Probably a good idea. We don’t really know too much about this alien, nice or not, so who knows how he’d react if he thought we were sneaking around.”

“Exactly,” Dipper smiled, relieved that she wasn’t upset. As far as actually being worried about Bill, though, his gut told him not to. Bill was a bit of a pain, sure, but he really did seem mostly harmless. To them, at least. He was still very much built like a predator, so Dipper had to keep that in mind if any animals came around.

Having a bunch of dead animals suddenly show up around would put up some red flags to everyone, not just the men in black.

“Anyway, your coffee making skills suck so I think I’ll ask Tad to take me out for a cup. Do you think Bill would want anything while I’m out? The shady guys don’t seem to bother me as much when I’m with Tad, so I can get away with getting anything that might stick out.”

“Actually…” Dipper scratched the back of his head, readying himself to tell his twin yet another thing he knew might upset her. The other thing he could’ve lied about forever, but this one was something that couldn’t be avoided, which made it that much harder to spit out. He wasn’t entirely sure how Mabel felt about Bill staying, so letting her know that he would be there for even longer might be a problem. “We aren’t sure how long it’s going to take to fix his ship. It would be awesome if you could pick up more food for him.”

At first, it seemed like Mabel hadn’t heard him or was just ignoring him, pulling her phone out from her bra and typing out a message before even looking back at Dipper. “Not sure how long, huh?” she mumbled.

“Uh, yeah.” Dipper gulped and went to reach for his coffee, only to stop himself when he remembered that Mabel had drunk it all. “Is that okay…?”

She put her phone away and stood again, combing her fingers through her long hair. “I want to tell Tad if Bill stays for more than a month,” she said much too seriously for Dipper’s liking.

“Wha-! But Mabel, he’s probably the  _ first _ person that would hand Bill over! He’s too by-the-book!” Dipper stood as well, blocking her path from leaving the kitchen. “You can’t tell him.”

“I can and I will if he stays for more than a month, Dipper,” she said sternly. “Think about it for a second. Do you  _ really _ think Tad would do something that  _ I _ asked him not to? And having the park ranger on our side could be a huge help. I know you think he’s just some big doof, but Tad’s actually a pretty capable person.”

Too tired to come up with a counter-argument, Dipper just sighed and ran his hands over his face. “If he’s still here after a  _ month, _ ” he started slowly, “then we can talk again about telling other people. Hopefully, before that, we can talk to Ford and Stan about this.”

“Right, them,” she said, placing her hand under her chin. “They might have an opinion on telling Tad…” She let her hands fall back to her sides and shrugged. “Welp, we’ll see if they respond in time. ‘Cause a month from now we gotta put on our big kid pants and deal with it ourselves, and I vote having Tad help. He’s a good resource.”

“Fine, whatever. We’ll talk about this again in a month.” He moved out of her way and meandered back to the coffee maker, still determined to enjoy his morning. Bill wouldn’t be up for another few hours and Mabel was going out, so he would still have time to think by himself.

With a fresh cup of coffee and a piece of buttered toast, Dipper sat at the kitchen table and put all of his obsessive planning skills to use. Having Bill around would be fine, and he could find a way to fix the ship before anyone else had to get involved in the mess he had made. It would just take a little bit of time and focus.

A few hours later, Bill made his way down the stairs very slowly, watching for anyone other than Dipper of Mabel very intently.

Dipper heard the floorboards whine under the alien’s weight and stood to greet him. His legs had fallen asleep and his back ached a bit from having sat in the kitchen chair for so long, but he shook the pains out in favor of asking Bill what he wanted to do for the day.

“It’s safe, no one’s here. Mabel went out, so it’s just you and me.” He noticed Bill’s lack of interest in him and let his shoulders fall, more curious than offended by the alien’s misplaced focus. “What’s up? You seem skittish today.”

Bill looked down at him and blinked a few times, his pupils narrowing at the brunet. “Word for...look? Don’t know this place, want to...look at it.”

“Oh,” Dipper laughed. “Explore? You want to explore the house? Well, feel free, you’re going to be here a little while anyway, might as well get comfortable with it.”

“Explore!” Bill said as if the word had been obvious. “Yes. Explore. Have been thinking more of your language, try to remember what I know. Used to be better, haven’t used in long while.”

“So you’ve told me,” Dipper yawned. The coffee had only given him so much energy for the day, so he was glad that all Bill wanted to do was tour the house. “Anyway, this place actually has a lot to it, so I’ll just show you the main spaces you might end up in.”

“Will follow you.”

Leading the way, Dipper walked into the front room, figuring that he’d start from there even though Bill knew that room already. “This is where we’ll probably spend most of our time,” Dipper explained. “We call it the living room. TV will eat up a lot of our downtime.”

Bill gave the TV an odd look at pointed to it. “It  _ eats? _ Not heard that before.”

Unable to hold a laugh back, Dipper shook his head while he let it out. “God, no, it’s just a phrase. I think I had a nightmare about that once, though.” He waved his hand at the old TV and continued walking forward. “Anyway, this stuff you already mostly know, so let’s move on.”

Dipper showed Bill a few of the rooms on the main floor of the shack, mainly Mabel’s and the ones Ford and Stan kept locked so that he could explain to the alien not to go into them.

“You should always knock and wait for Mabel to let you in. Trust me when I say you don’t want the wrath of a woman who’s just been startled while she’s sewing.” He shivered at the memory of Mabel chasing him around the shack, claiming that he made her prick her finger with the needle, so now he had to feel it too.

“Easy,” Bill nodded. “What about you? We share space, so do I knock for there too?”

“Uh, well, no. Unless I say not to come in. I could be changing or something,” Dipper said as he led them to the gift shop, their last stop before he would be done with their tour. “Anyway, this place is where we used to make most of our money. We only really open it every so often these days when we feel like it. Mabel makes money selling stuff online and Ford and Stan send us enough when they can to keep things afloat, so we don’t need it much anymore.”

The lights flickered on a bit slowly, taking a moment to warm up and illuminate the dusty shelves. It was rare that they ever went in this room, save for the few times they had to go down into Ford’s lab, but even then they only turned on the backlights so they could punch in the code.

“It’s...junk?” Bill tilted his head to the side, making his way over to the snow globes. “This is all useless.”

“Yeah,” Dipper snorted. He walked over to the snow globes as well, picking one up and shaking it after blowing the dust off the top. “Kinda neat, though.”

They both watched the fake snow fall silently, Bill looking as if he wanted to reach out and grab it from Dipper but refraining while the snow settled.

After a few beats of the silence, Dipper looked up at Bill, their eyes meeting in a weirdly tense moment that made Dipper nearly drop the snow globe.

“Why do you sweat slime?”

The question hit the air just as awkwardly as Dipper thought it would, but he wasn’t able to stop his mouth from moving to keep it in. He had no idea why that was what his brain chose to say, but he had to roll with it now that it was out.

“Slime?” Bill carefully grabbed the souvenir from Dipper, shaking it again so that he could watch the snow fall up-close.

“Yeah, in the mornings. We’re covered in slime. What is it? Why do you do it?” Dipper asked a little less awkwardly.

Bill didn’t answer for a moment, his attention still firmly on the snow. “It’s warm,” he finally said. “Biological blanket when I’m...in a new place. Won’t hurt you.”

The alien’s answer came out so unsure that Dipper had to consider that he could be lying. They had just made a little progress with getting along though, so he wasn’t going to call him out on it unless he felt like he had to.

“Okay,” Dipper exhaled. He wasn’t sure why Bill would be lying to him, but if showing him a little trust would help make living with him more bearable, Dipper was fine with it.

The snow globe was placed back on the shelf and Bill looked around, uninterested in anything else in the room. “Hungry. Kitchen?”

“Yeah, we can go back now. I’m sure you know enough to get around the house without getting lost.”

During their lunch, neither of them really spoke. Dipper wondered if Bill knew that he knew the slime thing was a lie since he had gotten weirdly quiet ever since. Though, Bill had been acting strange ever since he got out of bed that day, so it was possible the alien was just getting used to the fact that he had to stay there a while.

He figured he should ask Bill about it, just to see if the blond would share his feelings with Dipper. After the lie about the slime though, he doubted it.

“I bet this place is pretty different from your home, right?” Dipper asked while cleaning their dishes.

Bill was still licking his teeth free of blood from the meat, his eyes glued to Dipper’s hands scrubbing the bowl he had eaten noodles in. “Mostly same. Houses and beds, things like that.” He shrugged, looking away from Dipper when the brunet didn’t say anything in return.

Finding a way to approach the, “are you sad you have to stay here?” topic proved to be difficult. In the end, though, he just decided to be a bit blunt about it, hoping to get it out of the way as quickly as possible like a band-aid.

“Do you think you’ll get homesick?” He turned off the water and set the dishes aside to dry, doing his best not to look at Bill in fear of a bad reaction.

Rather than say something rude or scoffing like Dipper thought he might, Bill laughed. The sound of such an honest laugh from the alien made Dipper finally look over, wondering why his question was so funny.

“No, no homesick. I’m...a traveler. Planet of mine is just a place, not really ‘home’. If I have a home then it is my ship. Or myself. I am home to me?” He scrunched his face and shook his head. “Words make sense? You understand? I said it wrong maybe.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Dipper said softly. Bill didn’t seem upset about the topic, but now Dipper felt even worse about accidentally making him crash. Was the ship really all he had? “What about family?” Again his question escaped his mouth before he could filter it, making him inwardly cringe at himself.

“Family, like Mabel to you? Mammalian biology family?” Bill made his way back over to the table, sitting down and waiting patiently for Dipper to join him.

It made the brunet happy to see that Bill was willing to talk about these things, but he knew after this response he shouldn’t push too much more. He wouldn’t know what to do if he hit a sore spot with a stupid question.

“Yeah, that or just people you’re really close to, I guess.” He nervously rubbed his hands together under the table, praying the conversation wouldn’t turn sour from his accidental lack of sensitivity.

“My people stay around only a short time in life. We are born, they teach us to live, then we are on our own. Stay in packs but not close to biology family always. Some do, mine did not.” He gestured to Dipper with his hand. “What about your family? Mabel is all? Humans stay with family, yes?”

Dipper placed his hands on the table, relieved that the conversation felt much lighter than it had when he started it. “We do. But sometimes when we get older we move away. Mabel and I are twins and really close, so we’ve stuck together our whole lives. Our Parents are back home in California, and Stan and Ford are just out exploring the world.”

“So you have a lot of family? They’re just older and move away?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. It creaked under his weight but held firmly, Bill not seeming bothered by the fact that the dining set was probably barely able to hold his weight.

“Pretty much, yeah.” Bored with sitting in the kitchen, Dipper stood and nodded at Bill to follow him, the alien not hesitating to stand as well. “Let’s watch some TV for a while. I can show you more about Earth culture that way.”

Nodding, Bill followed him to the living room, carefully sitting on the couch so that he didn’t accidentally rip it again.

Dipper did what he could to explain things to Bill as he flipped through channels, not noticing that it was quickly lulling the alien to sleep. He only realized it once the blond slumped over onto his shoulder, squishing Dipper a bit.

“Why is he so clingy in his sleep?” Dipper grunted as he tried to push Bill off. “Hey, if you’re going to sleep, it’s safest to do it up in my room.”

Bill responded by pushing himself against Dipper even more until they were both lying down, ignoring the brunet’s protests. “More sleep. Tired,” he whined.

“Then go upstairs. And get off me, you weigh a ton.” Again he shoved Bill, that time actually getting the alien to move off of him.

“Fine, will go. Do not let me sleep for long, messing up sleep patterns isn’t good.”

Dipper gave him a thumbs up, nodding along with it in case Bill didn’t know what the gesture meant.

Once he was alone, Dipper texted Mabel to check in. She had been gone all day and he just wanted to be sure she ended up with Tad and not running from the men in black. He would be worried about them actually nabbing her if he didn’t know that Mabel would kick the ass of anyone who even attempted such a stupid idea.

Her reply came quickly, letting him know that she was, in fact, with Tad. Knowing she would be out late and that Bill would be asleep for a few more hours made Dipper realize that he had even more time to himself, possibly to keep working on some ideas to make his life easier.

In the end, however, Dipper just stayed on the couch, watching whatever came on while zoning out. It was surprisingly nice and helped him realize that having Bill around wasn’t going to be a constant worry like he thought it was.

If anything, it was more like he and Mabel had taken in a foreign exchange student. Just another roommate.

...One that had already seen him naked and slept in the same bed as he did.

He supposed being close to Bill so quickly wasn’t a bad thing. It would make life easier while the alien was there, and it wasn’t like it was really all that weird to him. Living with Mabel made him used to occasional sleepovers whenever she wanted to talk to someone all night while eating spray can cheese and crackers, so having someone else would be easy enough to adjust to.

As long as he didn’t do anything stupid and started to filter his questions a little more carefully, Dipper could see this situation turning out well in the end. Especially if they managed to get ahold of Stan and Ford, who he knew would be able to take care of the ship and men in black much more easily than he or Mabel could.

Attempting to get through to them again would be the next thing on his list to do. For the time being though, he needed to go wake up Bill. That day might’ve been a relax day but that didn’t mean they couldn’t work out a game plan to fix the ship. With Bill finally up for conversation, Dipper could ask what needed to be done and get a better idea of how long the alien would be staying with them.

As he walked up the stairs, the thought struck him that he’d have to be careful with exactly how close he got to Bill. He wanted to be his friend, sure, but chances of ever seeing him again after he left were slim to none, so even crossing the line of “good friends” might be too much. He had no intentions of getting close to him anyway, so it would be easy enough.

Nothing about Bill leaving would be sad that way, so keeping his distance emotionally would be a piece of cake.

Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill is a dirty liar, but which thing is he lying about?? >w> GUESS WE'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND FIND OUT owo
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Remember what I said about comments???? You don't have to, but it legit is always nice to see them and I love ya for 'em *wink wink, nudge nudge*


	7. Prying Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is up a tiny bit early on this site, but hey, I almost fucking straight up died today, so I figure I might as well share it if I've got it lol
> 
> Comments fuel me to write more, so if you have something to say, even if it's to scream at me for no real reason or spam me with memes, then feel free to turn the comments into a storm of crazy. It's a lot of fun to talk to you guys and makes writing fics that much more worth my time <3
> 
> Enjoy this chapter of the bois confusing each other :D

Waiting until Mabel had come home the next day to leave the house had been one of Dipper’s better ideas. The second he mentioned to Bill that he wanted to leave the house for more groceries and to scope out just how much the men in black would bother him, the alien began whining and complaining about how he would be bored while he waited.

Dipper was completely convinced that if he had left Bill alone, the blond would have left the house and gotten into something he wasn’t supposed to.

“So I get to babysit the alien now,” Mabel huffed when she sat down on the couch next to Bill. “No offense, Bill. I just thought I would be able to go out if Paz called.”

“Don’t  _ need _ to be watched,” Bill huffed, his yellow eyes not leaving Dipper for a second. He had been acting like Dipper was leaving him for more than an hour, and throwing a fit over the fact that Dipper wouldn’t let him come with.

“You two can play with Mabel’s art stuff. Y’know, the shiny stuff you like to eat? Play with that. Mabel, show the alien how to make macaroni art or something. I gotta go shopping and I obviously can’t take him with or let him just stay here alone. Please?”

Mabel waved the sleeves of her bright blue jacket at him, blowing a raspberry at him. “ _ Fine, _ I’ll sit and watch the alien. But you owe me big, broski! I won’t forget that I missed a fun lunch outing because  _ you _ stranded an alien on our planet.”

“Thank you,” Dipper sighed. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He grabbed the car keys and gave them a short goodbye, wanting to get the shopping trip over with so that Bill wouldn’t get the idea to slip away from Mabel and leave the house. There was a slim chance he could manage it, but if he did Dipper would be the one dealing with the fall out of it and that sounded too exhausting.

At some point, he would make an effort to try and call Ford and Stan again, but for the time being, his mission was to get in the store, grab what he needed, then get out. Luckily, his list wasn’t long and he knew the store well enough to make it quick, so he wasn’t too worried about it.

That is until he actually got there and could immediately feel eyes on him. He glanced over his shoulder and swallowed thickly, not sure where the feeling was coming from. It could very well be the men in black that had been trying to bother them and he knew if it was he had to play it safe.

Walking casually, Dipper made his way inside of the store and grabbed a cart, pulling out his phone to read his list and looking at it to keep himself from glancing over his shoulder every two seconds. Someone was definitely following him, their presence almost overwhelming Dipper whenever they got just a little too close.

There weren’t many other people in the store so it wasn’t hard to miss the guy. He was dressed in street clothes, but his haircut  _ screamed _ that the guy was more than just a normal dude picking up random items from the store. His posture and the way he walked didn’t help his case either.

Dipper made his way over to the meat section and instinctually looked behind himself, not seeing the man but knowing he was close. Buying a large amount of meat would probably prove to be pretty sketchy. The smartest way to do it involved him buying cheaper meat that had more to one package, and as he grabbed it he hoped Bill didn’t have some sort of crazy taste buds that would allow him to tell the difference. The alien would likely bitch about it and Dipper was not in the mood to hear him whining anymore.

With his cart full of everything he needed, Dipper wandered over to one of the checkout stands and chanced a glance over his shoulder again. The man tailing him was close by, pretending to look at batteries. As unsettling as it was, Dipper almost felt bad for the dude. Having to follow Dipper to the store and watch as next to nothing happened was likely the most boring part of his day.

Shaking his head, Dipper loaded up the belt with his things. He’d have to tell Mabel how closely they were being watched and really crack down on keeping Bill hidden. Maybe he would keep the alien inside until Ford and Stan came to help them, just so that there was no chance of him being seen. Dipper could work on cleaning up the ship a little more so that it was completely ready for Ford to help fix it. If his grunkle even  _ could, _ that is.

He still had no idea if Ford would actually know much about Bill or how to help them. Regardless, having the two older men around would be a huge help, even if it only got rid of the men in black currently stalking them.

“Sir?”

The store clerk snapped Dipper out of his thoughts and he realized then that he had been staring at the floor, probably freaking the poor lady out. “O-oh, right sorry.” He gave a sheepish smile and paid for the groceries, grabbing the bags quickly so that he could leave and not think about the awkward situation he had just caused.

Once again he noticed the man behind him, trying to seem like he hadn’t meant to leave the store at the same time Dipper did. Dipper took note then that this man was terrible at his job.

Driving straight home much faster than the speed limit allowed, Dipper kept his eyes peeled for any signs of being followed. He was shocked to find that he had been left alone. They must’ve been doing some recon of their own and Dipper hoped he hadn’t made them jump to any conclusions based off of his simple shopping trip.

His drive proved to be pretty peaceful, and he actually found himself relaxing into his seat, happy to turn the radio up a little and hum along to the music. It had been too long since he took a deep breath, and it was only then he realized how tense having Bill around made him. The alien wasn’t bad to be around, not really, but the stress of it had been a weight on his chest that he didn’t even notice until he was allowed that small moment to take a look at things with some fresh air.

There was no real plan for helping Bill get home other than calling his grunkles, pray they could help, then go from there. It wasn’t a solid plan, and it made Dipper nervous to think about not having something solid hammered out for once, but it was all he could really do. His hands were tied and he just had to hope for the best.

At home he brought in all the groceries in one go, not wanting to deal with walking out to the car again. Making more than one trip just sounded exhausting and he wanted to check on Bill after putting everything away.

The alien was likely hungry, so while he put the rest of the things away, Dipper put some of the meat in the oven and let it warm up. He put two pieces in for Bill, wanting to see how the blond would react to it. There was no real way of telling if he was giving Bill enough food, and he had the sneaking suspicion that he wasn't. Something that big had to eat more than a few steaks a day. Maybe Bill was just being nice and only complained about being hungry when he really needed it.

Either way, Dipper decided that he was going to feed the alien more this time. If he didn’t need more food, then it would just be a treat for behaving for Mabel while Dipper had been away.

“Mabel, Bill, come to the kitchen please,” Dipper said loudly as he pulled the warm meat from the oven. He set it on the table for Bill then made himself a bowl of cereal to munch on while Bill ate, only to freeze with the spoon in his mouth, milk dripping from his lips when he saw the alien walk into the room with his twin.

Bill’s face had  _ makeup _ on it, a similar tone to Mabel’s skin slathered on with sunglasses over his eyes and a light pink lipstick over his usually yellow lips. She had even done his eyebrows and combed his hair back, making him look more like an alien than he had before, which was almost impressive.

“Why is the alien wearing makeup? It’s called Cover Girl, not Cover Alien, Jesus Christ Mabel what were you trying to accomplish here? And what’s with the sunglasses?” Dipper had swallowed his mouthful of cereal, gaping at the mess of an alien in front of him.

“It is dark in here,” Bill said simply, not even trying for a second to explain the situation before going right to the food Dipper had readied for him.

Mabel sat down across from Bill, chewing her bottom lip while focusing on her makeup job. “I was fixing his face and his English. And, y’know, that movie from the eighties made it seem a  _ lot _ easier to make aliens seem human with a simple hairdo and some makeup.”

“Bill’s face doesn’t need to be fixed,” Dipper sighed. “And that was completely different from this. Bill’s like, half dinosaur, you even said it yourself. There’s no way you could make him look human.”

“It never hurts to try,” his twin defended.

Dipper shook his head at her, taking another bite of his cereal. “Well, now I have to go clean him up after this. Not that I had any plans this afternoon, but still. Washing the alien wasn’t on the list of things I  _ wanted _ to do.”

“Can wash myself,” Bill grumbled, his mouth full of food. He had eaten one steak already and was happily chowing down on the other, licking his lips then grimacing from the taste of the lipstick. “The taste is unfortunate.”

Mabel burst into a fit of giggles and stood up from her chair, waving a hand at Bill. “Well, I tried my best and got him to sit still in the house while your grumpy butt went shopping, so you should be proud, Dipdap. Have fun cleaning the alien up.” She skipped out of the room and went off to her room, probably to get ready for going out with friends even though she had made it sound like they only wanted to do lunch that day.

“Welp, looks like we’re scrubbing your face after we eat. Who knows what that crap’ll do to your face.” Dipper finished off his cereal and put the bowl in the sink to clean later. Bill had already finished his food and was just waiting patiently for the brunet, occasionally touching his face and making sour expressions when the foundation rubbed off on his fingers.

“Tastes and feels bad.” Bill stood and once again Dipper was reminded of how much bigger he was, his height alone intimidating the brunet enough to take a step back.

Bill wouldn’t hurt him, Dipper was pretty sure of that, but everything about the alien screamed predator and the more primitive part of Dipper’s brain wasn’t about to let him forget that.

“Uh, l-let’s go wash it off.” Dipper motioned for Bill to follow him as he made his way into the bathroom, grabbing a small washcloth from the towel closet on the way. He hoped Mabel hadn’t gone too crazy and that normal soap and water would wash off the mess on Bill’s face.

He sat Bill down on the toilet and wet the washcloth, scrubbing some soap onto it before moving to start working on the alien’s face. Working in small circles proved to be the best method, clearing most of the foundation away from his cheeks. Carefully, so that he didn’t startle Bill, Dipper took the sunglasses off and lifted his chin a bit so that he could get the rest of it.

The alien looked up at him, the expression on his face hard to read. He didn’t look bored or annoyed like Dipper thought he might, instead seeming more like he might be enjoying the fact that the brunet was scrubbing his face. His wide, yellow eyes stared right at Dipper, unblinking and bright like a cat in the dark. They were amazing. The color was more vibrant than any yellow Dipper had ever seen and he could see the intelligence behind them.

It was odd to think about how Dipper had almost written off Bill’s intelligence simply because he couldn’t speak English very well and didn’t know about Earth. Bill knew how to fix his spaceship and had been able to navigate himself to another planet. That took more smarts than any human had, and he could see in those eyes that there was an incredibly smart person staring back at him.

At some point Dipper had dropped the washcloth and didn’t even notice, his thumb still rubbing over Bill’s cheek to feel his soft skin underneath it. There, while he was so close to the alien, the two staring at each other, he realized that he had pushed a  _ lot _ about Bill off to the side of his mind. Dipper had a really cool, smart, pretty alien in his house and he hadn’t been as nice as he could be. It  _ was _ his fault that Bill was there, and he didn’t even think he had apologized properly for it.

Before he could get an apology out, Bill’s hand was on his wrist, lightly tugging Dipper’s hand away from his face.

“I can finish,” Bill said softly, a sudden melancholy look in his eyes. He looked away from Dipper and picked up the washcloth, moving Dipper out of his way to wet it again before scrubbing his face a little more harshly with it. “Will be done later. Go start something for us to do later. TV, maybe.”

Dipper felt a bit unwelcome in the room with Bill then, the moment they had just shared disappearing in the blink of an eye. Or maybe it had only been a moment for Dipper and the brunet had just been freaking Bill out by staring at him for however long he was thinking.

He didn’t say anything as he left, instead biting his bottom lip and letting his thoughts swim around in his head. Of course, Bill hadn’t been looking at him the same way Dipper just looked at him. Humans probably weren’t that interesting to him and he was still mad at Dipper for making him crash his ship. Bill wasn’t there to be his friend, he was there to get home. And the fastest way for him to do that was for Dipper to try and call his grunkles again.

The satellite phone had been put up in his room for safekeeping, so it was much easier to dig out than it had been the first time. He dialed the number and waited for only a moment before it had finally connected, Ford’s muffled voice coming through some static.

“Ford? Hello?”

“Di- trying to- is- okay?” The static cut up his voice horribly and Dipper was worried he wouldn’t be able to get out what he needed to.

“Listen, Ford, I can not hear you. I have been trying to call because I have a bit of a problem and I could really use some help. It is something only you and Stan can help with, which is the only reason I am asking you come home. I would not be calling if I did not feel like I could do this on my own.” Dipper spoke as clearly and evenly as he could, but he wasn’t sure if it was even heard because after another brief, cut off sentence from Ford, the call dropped.

He groaned and set the phone on his nightstand, rubbing his hands over his face.They would at least know that Dipper needed to talk to them. The call connected and that was enough to let them know that he needed them for some reason, so he didn’t doubt that they would do their best to make their way home to make sure everything was okay.

Bill hadn’t left the bathroom yet so Dipper decided to throw on a movie and wait for him. It was going to be hard to not even let himself be friends with the alien, but Bill didn’t seem to want it, so he wasn’t going to push it. He had to keep reminding himself that Bill was going to  _ leave _ and very likely never come back. There was no real point in making friends. Not that he was going to be rude to him, but making the extra effort just wasn’t going to be worth it.

Halfway through a lame movie that Dipper had found on a random channel, he stood up and went looking for Bill. If he hadn’t spaced out so hard thinking about nothing and everything he would’ve gone to look earlier, but his brain had felt the need to distract him from the huge responsibility he had so there he was, worried that he had left the alien alone too long.

“Bill? Everything alright?” Dipper found that the bathroom was empty, so he made his way up to his room to see if Bill had wandered to bed too early. The alien was there, but for once he had amassed the blankets onto the other bed, curled up underneath them. “Uh, you okay? Is something wrong?”

“Sleep. Nap. Nothing bad. Go away.” Bill’s voice was low and muffled by the blankets, different than what Dipper was used to.

“Well, alright. I-I’ll wake you up in a little while then for dinner.” Dipper stared at Bill for a moment before nodding to himself and leaving the room again.

There was a good chance he had messed up whatever progress he had made with Bill by staring at him like a total weirdo. Dipper hadn’t been able to help himself and now he was back to square one with possibly one of the coolest people he’d ever meet in his life. With a dejected sigh, he plopped back down on the couch and glued his eyes back on to TV, hoping he’d be able to work back up to at least talking to Bill like they had in the gift shop the day before.

Only time would be able to tell, so until he had to wake Bill up for dinner, he was going to just watch more dumb movies and not worry about it. He’d deal with his problems when they came and face the anxiety of that later, when there weren’t several movie marathons he could watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dipper, just talk to the fucking giant alien you dumb ass
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed! <3

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you for reading and comments and kudos are much loved and appreciated <3


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